Page:Revised Statutes of the State of North Carolina - Volume 1.djvu/16

At the session of the General Assembly of 1787, it was enacted "That James Iredall be, and he is hereby appointed a commissioner to revise and compile the acts of the General Assembly of the late Province and present State of North Carolina, and to insert the charter from the crown of Great Britain, &c.—and further, the said commissioner is hereby authorized and directed, in revising and collecting said acts, to leave out all laws repealed or obsolete, and private acts, and all other acts on which no question of property can arise; and further, the said commissioner is hereby required to see the said acts printed in the order and in the same words in which they now stand, with marginal notes of the contents of each section, a marginal reference, and a copious general index with reference to each act, and the contents of each section." This duty was performed by the commissioner appointed, and the laws printed by Hodge and Wills, at Edenton, in 1789, including the acts of 1788. It was approved in every respect by an act passed in 1791, and has been commonly known as "Iredall's Revisal." In the year 1792, Francois Xavier Martin, in obedience to a resolution of the General Assembly of the preceding year, published a "Collection of the statutes of the Parliament of England in force in the State of North Carolina," of which work is may only be remarked that it was utterly unworthy of the talents and industry of the distinguished compiler, omitting many important statutes, always in force, and inserting many others, which never were, and never could have been in force, either in the Province or in the State of North Carolina. In the year 1794, also in pursuance of a resolution of the General Assembly of the preceding year, the same gentlemen published "A collection of the the private acts of the General Assembly from the 1715 to the year 1790, inclusive, now in force and use." in 1800, John Haywood, one of the judges of the superior courts of law, published "A manual of the laws of North Carolina, arranged under distinct heads, in alphabetical order; with references from one head to another when a subject is mentioned in any other part of the book than under the distinct head to which it belongs." This work was a great favorite with the public, and passes through several editions. In 1803, it was resolved by the General Assembly "that Francois Xavier Martin collect and revise the public acts passed since the publication of Judge Iredell's Revisal, to the end of the present session inclusive; which said revisal connects the acts passed since Judge Iredell's by notes and remarks, adverting to such as appear to have been virtually repealed, and retaining as are not expressly so, and cause his said revisal to be printed." This revisal was prepared