Definition
"We have appointed a" is a formal phrasal opening used in legal instruments — most commonly powers of attorney, letters of appointment, and official commissions — by which a principal (or plurality of principals, including a corporate body or governmental authority) formally declares the act of constituting or designating another person to act in a defined capacity. The phrase operates as words of appointment: it does not merely describe an intention to appoint but performs the appointment itself, making the instrument operative from the moment of execution and delivery.
The phrase is characteristically found in the recital or granting clause of an instrument, immediately followed by the appointee's name and the capacity or powers being conferred. In that structural position, it functions as the operative language of the grant, equivalent to "know all men by these presents that we have made, constituted, and appointed."
---
Common Confusion
"We have appointed a" (past perfect, declarative) is sometimes confused with precatory or promissory language such as "we intend to appoint" or "we hereby authorize." The distinction matters: the past-perfect construction ("have appointed") was understood at common law to effect the appointment immediately and completely upon delivery of the instrument, with no further act required. Conditional or future-tense variants may require additional steps to become operative. Researchers encountering instruments where the tense or mood is ambiguous should treat that ambiguity as legally significant, not merely stylistic.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is a navigational marker rather than a freestanding legal concept. When scanning historical instruments in the Law Mind corpus, its presence signals:
1. INSTRUMENT TYPE. The phrase reliably identifies the document as a power of attorney, letter of attorney, commission, or formal appointment instrument. Researchers looking for agency relationships in historical records should search for this phrase as a locator string.
2. PLURALITY OF PRINCIPALS. The "we" form distinguishes instruments executed by multiple principals — partnerships, corporate bodies, boards, or co-owners — from single-principal instruments using "I have appointed" or "know ye that I." The plurality of the grantor affects how the authority granted is construed (jointly vs. severally) and how revocation operates.
3. HISTORICAL FORMALISM. Pre-twentieth-century instruments relied heavily on fixed formal openings. The presence or absence of established phraseology was sometimes used to challenge an instrument's validity. Researchers reading older case law should be aware that courts occasionally scrutinized whether the operative words of appointment were sufficiently definite, and "we have appointed a" (followed by the appointee's description) was treated as a settled, sufficient formula.
4. CORPUS CONNECTIONS. In the Law Mind corpus, this phrase threads through materials on agency, partnership authority, corporate resolutions, and governmental commissions. It appears in proximity to terms such as ATTORNEY IN FACT, PROCURATION, and LETTERS OF ATTORNEY, and researchers following an agency question should treat any instrument bearing this opening as presumptively creating an agency relationship subject to the scope limitations stated elsewhere in the instrument.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry for this phrase is fragmentary — the dictionary text as preserved runs directly from the "We have appointed a" heading into an entry for "A JUROR (venire facias returned)" with supporting citations (5 Me. 333; Nott & McCord (S.C.) 46; 3 Wheeler Am. C.L. 148), and then continues without a self-contained explanation of "We have appointed a" as a standalone formula. This appears to be either a printing artifact or a cross-reference structure in which the juror-appointment context (the return of a venire facias) was the specific illustrative use the editors had in mind.
Read in that light, Rapalje & Lawrence appear to treat "we have appointed a [juror]" as a phrase arising in the context of court process — specifically the formal language of a venire facias return, where officers or commissioners certify that they have summoned and appointed a juror as directed. This is a narrower, procedural use of the phrase distinct from its broader appearance in private powers of attorney and corporate instruments.
The dictionary does not offer a definition or analytical commentary on the phrase itself, treating it as self-evident formalism requiring only citation support for its procedural context. Historical legal dictionaries generally do not address operative words of appointment as independent entries, folding their treatment into larger entries on ATTORNEY, AGENCY, COMMISSION, or the specific instrument type involved.
---
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase appears in both common-law American and English instruments without material variation in meaning. State-level differences in the formal requirements for powers of attorney (acknowledgment, witnessing, recording) affect the instrument's enforceability but do not alter the operative function of the appointment language itself.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — LETTERS OF ATTORNEY; AGENCY; VENIRE FACIAS
---