Definition
"Bind ourselves and each of us for the whole and entire sum of [amount]" is a formula used in historic bond instruments to create several — rather than joint — liability among multiple obligors. When this language appeared in a bond, each signatory was individually bound for the full stated sum, not merely for a proportionate share. A creditor could pursue any single obligor for the entire obligation without first proceeding against the others.
The phrase functions as a term of art within the law of bonds and suretyship. Its operative words are "each of us for the whole," which courts read as establishing independent, complete liability in every obligor. The distinction it creates is between:
1. Several liability — each obligor is individually responsible for the total sum; and
2. Joint liability — all obligors together are responsible for the sum, and ordinarily all must be sued together.
This formula resolves that distinction in favor of several liability.
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Common Language
The constituent words — bind, ourselves, each — carry their ordinary English meanings. What is not obvious from common usage is that their combination in a bond instrument carries legal weight sufficient to determine the entire structure of liability among multiple parties. A lay reader might assume "bind ourselves" simply means "we agree." In law, the precise form of that agreement — joint, several, or joint and several — determines who can be sued, for how much, and in what procedural posture. The phrase is a legal formula, not a narrative description.
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Common Confusion
This language is easily confused with joint and several liability formulas, which bind all obligors together and each for the whole. The critical difference is that a joint and several bond preserves the creditor's option to sue collectively or individually. A purely several bond using this formula omits the joint element entirely: the bond is not a collective undertaking but a set of parallel individual undertakings. Researchers encountering historic bond instruments should not assume that language binding "each of us" for the full sum automatically creates joint and several liability — the absence of joint language matters.
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Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is unlikely to appear in modern instruments, which use explicit statutory or contractual language to specify joint, several, or joint and several liability. It belongs almost entirely to the era of formal common-law bond practice — roughly through the nineteenth century — when the precise wording of bond recitals controlled legal consequences that modern drafters address through direct statement.
Researchers working in early American or English legal records, particularly in commercial, surety, or probate contexts, will encounter bond instruments using this and similar formulas. The liability structure those formulas created determined procedural rights: whether a creditor could bring an action against one obligor alone, whether contribution among co-obligors was available, and how judgments could be satisfied.
The Rapalje & Lawrence citation — 3 Dowling & Ryland 112 — points to English King's Bench practice from the 1820s, situating this formula firmly in the common-law bond tradition that American courts inherited. Researchers working with pre-Civil War American bond instruments will find English practice directly relevant because American courts of that period regularly cited and followed English decisions on bond construction.
The trap in historical sources is assuming that the presence of multiple obligors on a bond automatically means joint liability. Courts treated the actual language of the instrument as controlling. A bond that said "we bind ourselves jointly" meant something different from one that said "each of us for the whole," and different again from one that said both. Misreading the formula leads to misunderstanding which parties bore what risk — a consequential error in any historical legal analysis of creditor-debtor relationships, estates, or commercial transactions.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence define this phrase by reference to its legal consequence: that a bond using this language is "several, and not joint," citing 3 Dowling & Ryland 112. The entry is minimal but precise — it identifies the operative legal effect without extended analysis. This reflects the reference style of nineteenth-century law dictionaries, which typically catalogued formulas and their judicial interpretations rather than explaining the underlying doctrine.
What Rapalje & Lawrence do not address — and what no single dictionary entry of that era was designed to address — is the full doctrinal context: the difference between the several bond this language creates and a joint and several bond, the procedural consequences for actions at common law, or the equity court treatment of contribution among co-sureties. Researchers should treat the dictionary entry as a pointer to the case and the case as the starting point for deeper doctrinal work.
No other shelf sources in the Law Mind corpus contain a discrete entry for this phrase, which is consistent with its character as a bond formula rather than a freestanding legal concept.
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Jurisdictional Note
The formula originates in English common law and was received into American practice. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American legislatures increasingly codified the rules governing joint and several liability in instruments, reducing reliance on common-law formula construction. Modern bond and surety instruments in all U.S. jurisdictions use explicit contractual or statutory language; this historic phrase has no active modern drafting role.
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