174 



CODIFICATION. 



body of the law, or so much and such parts 

 thereof as to the commissioners should seem 

 practicable and expedient ; and a further clause 

 providing for three commissioners " to revise, 

 reform, simplify, and abridge the rules of prac- 

 tice, pleadings, forms, and proceedings of the 

 Courts of Record." 



Accordingly, in 1847, the Legislature created 

 two commissions one, in reference to proceed- 

 ings, consisted of Arphaxed Loomis, Nicholas 

 Hill, Jr., and David Graham. Mr. Hill having 

 resigned, David Dudley Field was appointed in 

 his place. Their report was made iff part in 

 1848, and their code adopted. With various 

 amendments since made, that is now the code 

 of practice in the State. The residue of their 

 report was afterwards made, but was never 

 adopted by the Legislature. The first part of 

 their work bore the marks of haste ; but render- 

 ed necessary as it was by the then recent amal- 

 gation of the Courts of Law and Equity, it ob- 

 tained a fast foothold, and now bids fair to 

 achieve permanency. It has been adopted in 

 some others of the States. 



The other commission to codify the whole 

 body of the law consisted of Reuben H. "Wai- 

 worth, who, as Chancellor of the State, had 

 established an enviable monument of juridical 

 ability, Alvah Worden, and John A. Collier. 

 Chancellor Walworth declined the task, and 

 Anthony L. Robertson, afterwards Chief Jus- 

 tice of the Superior Court, was appointed in his 

 place. In 1849 a new commission was appoint- 

 ed, consisting of John C. Spencer (who had 

 been one of the revisers of the statutes in 1830), 

 Alvah Worden, and Seth 0. Hawley. In 1850 

 that law was repealed. Here the provision of 

 the Constitution slumbered until 1857, when 

 David Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes, 

 and Alexander W. Bradford were appointed 

 commissioners, with the proviso that they 

 should receive no compensation. These gentle- 

 men were all extensively engaged in the prac- 

 tice of the law in the city of New York, and, 

 of course, devoted only their leisure moments 

 to the task. They made reports of their work 

 in its progress from time to time, and made 

 their final report in the latter part of 1865. In 

 the mean time Mr. Noyes had died. 



The law appointing them required them to 

 present to the next Legislature a general anal- 

 ysis projected by them. Such report was 

 made in 1858, in which they proclaimed the 

 ambitious purpose of presenting " in a con- 

 densed and convenient form the great body of 

 the law, not the laws 06 England, nor the laws 

 of France, nor yet the laws of Rome, but the 

 laws of the foremost American Commonwealth, 

 formed out of those which were brought in by 

 our ancestors and those which have sprung 

 from the genius and the wants of our owu 

 land." 



Their occasional reports, as well as their final 

 one, have been distributed very generally among 

 the judges and the profession, but do not as 

 yet seem to have attracted much attention, or 



awakened much interest, and it remains to be 

 seen whether their work will receive any more 

 notice from the Legislature than did the second 

 report of the Commissioners of Practice. It is, 

 however, somewhat significant of the difficulty 

 of the task and of the public feeling on the sub- 

 ject, that the injunction of the Constitution has 

 produced so little fruit in twenty years. 



The aim of the commissioners has been, in 

 connection with the work of the Commission- 

 ers of Practice, to form five distinct codes of 

 the law of the State : 



1. Proceedings in civil cases. 



2. Proceedings in criminal cases (including 

 the law of evidence). 



3. The political code, declaring the rights 

 of citizens, defining the territory, and prescrib- 

 ing the general and local Government of the 

 State. 



4. The penal code, defining crimes and pun- 

 ishments. 



5. The civil code, embracing the law of per- 

 sonal rights and relations, of property, and of 

 obligations, and having four divisions. The 

 first, relating to persons, defines their civil con- 

 dition, enumerates their personal rights, and 

 declares their personal relations such as hus- 

 band and wife, parent and child, guardian and 

 ward, and master and servant. The second, re- 

 lating to property, embraces real and personal 

 property, the interests and estates therein, and 

 the modes of acquisition, uses, powers and wills-, 

 corporations, shipping, and navigation. The 

 third, relating to obligations, embraces the 

 whole subject of contracts, express or by im- 

 plication of law, and the law of sale, exchange, 

 bailment, service carriage, trusts, agency, part- 

 nership, insurance, indemnity, suretyship, pledge, 

 mortgage, lien, and commercial paper. The 

 fourth relates to relief and the mode of secur- 

 ing rights by specific performance or by danl- 

 ages, and the relation of debtor and creditor, 

 and includes and explains some few of the many 

 maxims of jurisprudence. 



The commissioners properly speak of this as 

 an "immense range of subjects," and of the 

 work as a " vast undertaking." This is no 

 place to discuss the manner in which the work 

 has been accomplished. That task will be per- 

 formed in other forums. It is enough now to 

 speak of it as the beginning of a work which 

 the enterprising and energetic spirit of our 

 people will yet accomplish, for our people will 

 not long submit to be tied down by rules hav- 

 ing their origin and their interpretation in an 

 age of Teudalism, utterly antagonistic to the en- 

 larged freedom which is the very soul of our 

 institutions. 



How far the proposed code departs from 

 those ancient laws, it is not proposed now to 

 consider. The commissioners say that all they 

 profess is " that they have endeavored to col- 

 lect those general rules known to our law 

 which are applicable to our present circum- 

 stances and ought to be continued." This may 

 or may not embrace all the reforms which our 



