14 ELONIS v. UNITED STATES THOMAS, J., dissenting guilty; but that if they thought he did not know the con­ tents, or that the words might import any thing less than to kill or murder, they ought to acquit,” id., at 143, 168 Eng. Rep., at 173. On appeal following conviction, the judges “thought that the case had been properly left to the Jury.” Ibid., 168 Eng. Rep., at 174. Other cases likewise appeared to consider only the import of the letter’s lan­ guage, not the intent of its sender. See, e.g., Rex v. Boucher, 4 Car. & P. 562, 563, 172 Eng. Rep. 826, 827 (K. B. 1831) (concluding that an indictment was sufficient be­ cause “th[e] letter very plainly conveys a threat to kill and murder” and “[n]o one who received it could have any doubt as to what the writer meant to threaten”); see also 2 E. East, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown 1116 (1806) (discussing Jepson and Springett’s Case, in which the judges disagreed over whether “the letter must be under­ stood as . . . importing a threat” and whether that was “a necessary construction”). Unsurprisingly, these early English cases were well known in the legal world of the 19th century United States. For instance, Nathan Dane’s A General Abridge­ ment of American Law—“a necessary adjunct to the li­ brary of every American lawyer of distinction,” 1 C. War­ ren, History of the Harvard Law School and of Early Legal Conditions in America 414 (1908)—discussed the English threat statute and summarized decisions such as Girdwood. 7 N. Dane, A General Abridgement of American Law 31–32 (1824). And as this Court long ago recognized, “It is doubtless true . . . that where English statutes . . . have been adopted into our own legislation; the known and settled construction of those statutes by courts of law, has been considered as silently incorporated into the acts, or has been received with all the weight of authority.” Pennock v. Dialogue, 2 Pet. 1, 18 (1829); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Burdick, 2 Pa. 163, 164 (1846) (considering English cases persuasive authority in interpreting similar