The spirit and operation of our land laws, as well as the many legal usages peculiar to the United States, preclude the adoption of the English methods in this country. Our system of registration, with its attendant doctrine of constructive notice, has rendered comparatively unimportant the original documents, and has thrown upon the purchaser the burden of examining the public records. To discharge the legal duty thereby occasioned and at the same time to obviate the necessity of a personal search of the records, there has been developed the modern American abstract.

During the earlier years of our history but little attention was paid to title in purchases of real property. Usually the vendee was fully satisfied with the vendor's warranty deed, the covenants thereof being taken as conclusive evidence of all the facts they recited. No inquiry was made with respect to the past, present possession being considered a sufficient guaranty of ownership, and no thought was had as to the future. Transfers of land were frequently accompanied by the vendor's purchase deeds and other muniments upon which the title was based, according to the English practice, and such may still be the custom in some parts of the country.

But with the increasing commercial activity of the age, and the removal of impediments to alienation, has come a vast accumulation of evidences of title, frequently involving complex interests that call for a high degree of skill to arrange and classify, as well as to interpret and adjust. Land, too, in many localities has acquired an almost fabulous value and purchasers now part with their money only on strong assurance of title. It is no longer practicable, however, save in rare instances, to examine title by specific inspection of the original documents, were such always available, or to laboriously follow on the records the various mutations through which it has passed. Yet, as purchasers take at their peril, save as they may find protection in the covenants of their deeds, it is necessary that, in some way, they should be apprised of whatever may affect the validity of the title or estate they take, of which the law charges them with actual or constructive notice. And so, to satisfy this demand, we now have the modern abstract of title.

In compiling an abstract, the examiner simply collects, condenses and arranges the information found of record, without, as a rule, any expression as to the rights of any of the parties named therein. The work is then turned over to counsel, who critically examines each instrument shown or statement made; decides upon the sufficiency and legal effect of the conveyances, noting any defects or irregularities therein, or in any of the proceedings necessary to divest or acquire title; determines the relative rights and legal relations of the parties to the land in question and to each other; and finally formulates his views in a written opinion which is often annexed to the abstract, and on the strength of which future sales and other dispositions of the property are usually made.2

2 Warvelle on Abstracts, p. 5.