7 ‒ Judge Daly himself, however, sees no ground for inferring that the decision proceeded from aversion. He thinks it was simply a question of law. The law of New York colony was especially modeled upon that of the mother country. New York was a conquered province, and when it was taken from the Dutch, the English mode of procedure in all matters of law and government was introduced bodily; and from this circumstance English forms, precedents and modes of proceeding came into use to an extent that did not prevail in other colonies where the people themselves had been left to originate and frame such a system of government and laws as was suggested by their wants and most conducive to their interests. The Legislative Assembly was therefore simply declaring the law as it existed in England at that time. (l. c.) 8 ‒ Oscar S. Straus, “The Origin of the Republican Form of Government in the United States,” p. 48. 9 ‒ See Oppenheim, “The Jews and Masonry,” in “Publications” XIX, pp. 9 ff., for an interesting treatment of the discussion about the authenticity of this statement. 10 ‒ For a list of their names see “Publications” XVII, pp. 168–69. 11 ‒ Lecky, _Rationalism in Europe_, vol. II, 168, quoted in Straus, _Origin of Republican Form of Government in the United States_, pp. 19 _ff._, which see for an extensive treatment of this subject. 12 ‒ Another great American clergyman, Dr. Henry M. Field (1822–1907), who wrote about a century later, also found in the Jewish polity much that was later adopted in the Constitution of the United States. In his work _On the Desert_ (New York, 1883), he says: “Perhaps it does not often occur to readers of the Old Testament that there is much likeness between the Hebrew Commonwealth and the American Republic.... At the bottom there is one radical principle that divides a republic from a monarchy or an aristocracy; it is the natural equality of men――that “all men are born free and equal”――which is fully recognized in the laws of Moses as in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, the principle is carried further in the Hebrew Commonwealth than in ours; for not only was there equality before the laws, but the laws aimed to produce equality of condition in one point, and that a vital one――the tenure of land, of which even the poorest could not be deprived, so that in this respect the Hebrew Commonwealth approached more nearly to a pure democracy.” See a more extensive quotation in Simon Wolf’s _The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen_, pp. 494–98. 13 ‒ A drawing of this design is printed as the frontispiece of Mr. Straus’s above-named work.