CODIFICATION. 



173 



he could not avoid honoring him for his fidelity 

 to his convictions. At the earnest solicitation 

 of the premier, Mr. Cobden consented to nego- 

 tiate the Treaty of Commerce with France, in 

 doing which he was involved in no complicity 

 with the other action of the ministers, while he 

 conferred a great and lasting henefit on both 

 countries, and greatly diminished the proba- 

 bilities of war between them. This treaty of 

 commerce, which reduced tbe prohibitory duties 

 respectively on British and French goods to an 

 ad valorem of twenty-five or thirty per cent., 

 abolished all duties, with but the fewest possi- 

 ble exceptions, on British manufactured goods, 

 and reduced materially the charges on English 

 iron, coal, and coke, was, both in its inception 

 and its completion, despite the numberless ob- 

 stacles which prejudice, protectionist views, and 

 personal hostility brought to bear against it, 

 one of the greatest triumphs of diplomacy in 

 our own or any other age. It was fitly regarded 

 by Mr. Cobden's friends as the crowning achieve- 

 ment in his long career of advocacy of the doc- 

 trines of Free Trade. After its completion, 

 Lord Palmerston, on the part of her Majesty, 

 offered to Mr. Cobden a baronetcy and a place 

 in the Privy Council, but he declined, modestly 

 but firmly, both the hereditary rank and the 

 personal honor. 



In the five years which followed, the frail 

 tenure of his health prevented him from accom- 

 plishing as much public labor as had been his 

 wont, but his pen was active, and occasionally 

 he made speeches in Parliament and to his con- 

 stituents, in which the old fire and eloquence 

 gleamed out, Avhile the principles he advocated, 

 though sometimes new in their application, 

 were the same which had guided his whole pub- 

 lic life. He urged the repeal of the paper duty, 

 as a tax on knowledge ; the reduction of the 

 national expenditure, especially in the vast 

 sums wasted on fortifications, armored ships, 

 experimental cannon, and small-arms. He was 

 ever the earnest and consistent friend of the 

 United States and the decided opponent of the 

 multifarious schemes for recognizing, aiding, or 

 giving countenance to the so-called Southern 

 Confederacy; and even in our darkest hours, 

 when many of our friends in Great Britain re- 

 garded the cause of the Union as hopeless, his 

 words ever came with a cheery tone to encour- 

 age us to hold on and hold out till the final vic- 

 tory was gained. To his vigorous remonstrances, 

 too, was it mainly due, that on several critical 

 occasions the English Government did not drift 

 into war with the United States. He did not 

 live to see the end, but he came so near it as to 

 predict on the 5th of February, 1865, its coming 

 within ninety days, a prediction which was fully 

 verified. His death was the result of a visit to 

 London in order to be present in Parliament at 

 a very inclement season, which induced a severe 

 paroxysm of asthma, proving fatal April 2, 1865. 



CODIFICATION. It has been well re- 

 marked that the American Revolution of 1776 

 effected our independence of the Government 



of England, and left our independence of her 

 laws, her language, and her literature yet to bo 

 achieved. The latter was necessarily to be the 

 work of time, and the ninety years which have 

 elapsed have already done a great deal. "We 

 have an American literature ; our language has 

 adopted many " Americanisms," and in our 

 laws there have been many departures from 

 the ancient law of the mother country. It is 

 now proposed, in the State of New York, to 

 make a still greater departure, in the form of 

 codifying the whole body of the law. 



The civil law, which dates its origin back 

 more than twenty centuries, and which ob- 

 tains in all of Europe but a portion of Great 

 Britain, and in all of America but the United 

 States and the British Provinces, has several 

 times been codified. The codes of Theodosius, 

 of Justinian, and of Napoleon, and in this conn- 

 try, of Louisiana, are all codifications of the 

 civil law. But the common laic, whose origin 

 is scarcely one thousand years distant, and 

 which obtains in all the British dominions, and 

 in all of the United States but Louisiana, has 

 never yet been codified, though in different 

 periods such minds as those of Bacon, Bentham, 

 and Brougham have contemplated it. 



Scattered as the rules of the common law 

 are, through the whole body of the statute law, 

 the customs of the people, and the decisions of 

 the courts for several centuries, and subject to 

 constant changes by adjudication, it would 

 seem that codification had at length become a 

 necessity; yet in the language of Chancellor 

 Kent, "the great objection to all kinds of codi- 

 fication, when it runs into detail", is that the 

 rules are not maleable, they cannot accommo- 

 date to circumstances, they are imperative." 

 Those rules being reduced to the form of a stat- 

 ute, come within the maxim that " the statute 

 is like a tyrant ; where he comes he makes all 

 void ; but the common law is like a nursing 

 father, and makes void that part only where 

 the fault is, and preserves the rest." 



Notwithstanding all this, the State of New 

 York has long entertained the idea of codifying 

 its law, and has made itself a pioneer in the 

 task. The attempt was first made in the re- 

 vised statutes of 1830. All prior revisions of 

 the statutes had been mere compilations, but 

 this was an essay at codification. Carried out 

 as it was by three minds, well fitted for the 

 task, though necessarily running very much 

 into detail, it has received the sanction of thirty- 

 five years of stability. In the previous thirty 

 years there had been two revisions in 1801 

 and 1813. 



The favor with which this effort at codifica- 

 tion had been received prompted the New York 

 Constitutional Convention of 1846 to make a 

 further attempt. There was, accordingly, in- 

 serted in the Constitution a clause, that the 

 Legislature, at its first session after the adoption 

 of the Constitution, should appoint three com- 

 missioners, whose duty it should be to reduce 

 into a written and systematic code the whole 



