GENERAL WARRANT. A process which used to issue from the state secretary's office, to take np (without naming any person in particular) the author, printer, and pub lisher of such obscene and seditious libels as were particularly specified in it. It was de clared illegal and void for uncertainty by a vote of the house of commons. Cora. Jour. 22 April, 1766 Wharton, Law Diet. 2d Lond. ed.
A writ of assistance.
The issuing of these was one of the causes of the American republic. They were a species of general warant, being directed to " all and sin gular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects," empowering them to enter and search any house for u acustomed goods, and to command all to assist them. These writs were per petual, there being no return to them. They were not executed, owing to the eloquent argument of Otis before the supreme court of Massachusetts against their legality. See Tudor, Life of Otis, 66.
The term occurs in modern law in a differ ent sense. See 18 Ill. 67.
GENE (Let.). In Roman Law. A union of families, who bore the same name, who were of an ingenuous birth, ingenui, none of whose ancestors had been a slave, and who had suf fered no capitis dinzinutio.
Gentiles aunt, qui inter se eodens amine aunt ; qui ab ingenuis oriundi aunt; quorum mojorunt nemo servitutem servivit ; qui eapite non snot derninuti. This definition is given by Cicero (Topic 6). after Seeevola, the poutifex. But, notwithstanding this high authority, the,question as to the organization of the gene is involved in great othieurity and doubt. The definition of Festus is still more vague and unsatisfactory. He says, "Gentilie dicitur et ex eodem genre ortue, et is, qui simili namine appellatur, ut ait Oinciue : Gentiles mini mint, qui meo 71ontine ap pellaniur." Gene and genus are convertible terms; and Cicero defines the latter word, " Genus autem eat quad sui eintiles commutriane quadani, specie mama, differentes, duae out pluree complectitur parses." De Oratore, 1, 42. The genus is that which compre hends two or more particulars, similar to one an other by having something in common, but differ ing in species. From this it may fairly be con cluded that the gene or race comprises several families, always of ingenuous birth, resembling each other by their origin, general tiame,—namen,., anti common sacrifices or sacred ritea,—saera genati li ia (eui similes communionequadama),—but differing from each other by a particular name,—cognomen and aria tie (specie cadent differentee). It would seem, however, from the litigation between the Claudii and Marcellii in relation to the inheritance of the son of a freedman, reported by Cicero, that the deceased, whose succession was in controversy, belonged to the gene Claudia, for the foundation of their claim was the gentile rights,—gente ; and the Marcellii (•lebeians belonging to the same gene) supported their pretensions on the ground that he was the son of their freedman. This fact has been thought by some writers to contradict that part of the definition of Scmvola and Cicero where they say, quorum majorunz nem° servitutens eervivit. And Niebuhr, in a note to his history, concludes thatthe definition is erroneous: he says, " The claim of the patrician Claudii is at variance with the definition in the Topics, which excludes the posterity of freed men from the character,of gentiles : probably the decision was against the Claudii, and this might be the ground on which Cicero denied the title of gen tiles to the descendants of freedmen. I conceive in so doing he must have been mistaken. We know from Chaere himself (de Leg. 11, 22) that no bodies or ashes were allowed to be placed in the common sepulchre unless they belonged to such as Shared in the gene and its sacred rites; and several freedmen have been' admitted into the sepulchre of the Soiplos." But in another place he says, "The division into houses was so essential to the patrician order that the appropriate ancient term to designate that order was a circumloeution,—the patrician gentee; hut the instance just mentioned shows beyond the reach of a doubt that such a pens did not consist of patricians alone. The Claudian contained the Marcellii, who were ple beians, equal to the Appii in the splendor of the honors they attained to, and incomparably more useful to the commonwealth'; such plebeian famine(' must evidently have arisen frion marriages of dis paragement, contracted before there was any right of intermarriage between the orders. But the Claudian house had also a very large number of i :significant persons who bore its name,—such as the M. Claudius who disputed the freedom of Vir
ginia; nay, according to an opinion of earlier times, as the very case in Cicero proves, it contained the freedmen and their descendants. Thus, among the Gaels, the clan of the Campbells was formed by the nobles and their vassals: if we apply the Roman phrase to them. the former had the clan, the latter only belonged to it." It is obvious that, if what is said in the concluding part of the passage last quoted be correct, the definition of Scasvola and Cicero is perfectly consistent with the theory of Niebuhr himself; for the definition, of course, re fers to the original stock of the gene, and not to such as might he attached to it or stand in a cer tain legal relation towards it. In Smith's Die tionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, edited by that accomplished classical scholar, Professor An then, the same distinction is intimated, though not fully developed, as follows :—" But it must be ob served, though the descendants of freedmen might have no claim as gentiles, the members of the gem' might, as such, have claims against them ; and in this sense the descendants of freedmen might be gentiles." Hugo, in his History of the Roman Law, vol. 1, p. 83 et seq., says, "Those who bore the same name belonged all to the same gene: they were gentiles with regard to each other. Conse quently, as the freedmen took the name of their former master, they adhered to his gene, or, in other words, stood in the relation of gentile's to him and his male descendants. Livy refers in express terms to the gene of an enfranchised slave (b. 39,19), Teeenise ilispake . . . . geniis enupeia ;' and the right of inheritance of the son of a freedman was conferred on the ground of civil relationship,— gente. But there must necessarily have been a great difference between those who were born in the gene and those who had only entered it by adoption, and their descendants; that is to say, between those who formed the original stock of the gene, who were all of patrician origin, end those who had entered the family by their own enfranchisement or that of their ancestors. The former alone were entitled to the rights of the gen tiles; and perhaps the appellation itself was eon fined to them, while the latter were called ge2ailitii, to designate those against' whom the gentilce had certain rights to exercise." rn a lecture of Niebuhr on the Roman Geotes, vol. 1, p. 70, he says, "Such an association, consisting of a number of families, from which a person may withdraw, but into which he cannot be admitted at all. or only by being adopted by the whole association, is a gene. It must not be confounded with the family, the mem bers of which are descended from a common ances tor; for the patronymic names of the gentee are nothing but symbols, and are derived from heroes." Arnold gives the following exposition of the sub jeet :—" The people of Rome were divided into the three tribes of the Ramnenses, Titiensee, and Lu ceres, and each of these tribes was divided into ten curial : it would be more correct to say that the union of ten curial formed the tribe. For the state grew out of the junction of certain original ele ments ; and these were neither the tribes, nor even the curiae, but the gentes or houses which made up the curia. The first element of the whole system was the gene, or house, a union of several families who were bound together by the joint performance of certain religious rites. Actually, where a sys tem of houses has existed within historical memory, the several families who composed a hope were not necessarily related to one another ; they were not really oousine more or less distant, ell descended from a common ancestor. But there is no reason to doubt that in the original idea of a house the, bond of union between its several families was truly sameness of blood; such was likely to be the ear liest acknowledged tie, although afterwards, ss names are apt to outlive their meaning, an artificial bond may have succeeded to the natural one, and a house, instead of oonsisting of families of real relations, was made up sometimes of families of strangers, whom it was proposed to bind together by a fictitious tie, in the hope that law and custom and religion might together rival the force of na ture." 1 Arnold, Hiat. 31. The gentiles inherited from each other in the absence of agnates : the rule of the Twelve Tables is, " Sei ado:atoll nec emit, qennlfe familiant nancitor," which has been para. phrased,"Si agalatne non erit, tam genii lie &ere* eeto."