Frontier territories evaded the requirement that they borrow preexisting state statutes wholesale.

Evidence

From the start, however, the phrase “adopt and publish” was troublesome and confusing. It seemed to imply that the territories had no right to make law on their own. They only had power to rummage around in the statute books of older states, picking and choosing what they wanted or needed. Of course, this provision could not be carried out literally. At the very least, dates and place names in borrowed statutes had to be changed. In practice, the territories avoided and evaded the “adopt and publish” rule. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 864