The Classification of Law course of their work this Commission reported to the Legislature as follows :— We think that our whole written law should be comprised under appropriate titles; that those titles should be classified in their
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Div. V. Public laws of a local and mis cellaneous character; including the laws concerning the city of New York; acts in corporating cities and villages; and such other acts of incorporation as it may be deemed
necessary to publish.“
natural order; and more especially, that the
various provisions of each statute should be arranged in the clearest and most scientific method. On a close examination of our whole scheme,
in all its parts and bearings, we trust it will be found, that we proposed to do nothing more than to free our written code from the prolixities, uncertainties, and confusion inci
dent to the style and manner in which it has hitherto been framed, and to apply to the elucidation of this branch of the noblest of of all sciences, those principles of an enlarged philosophy, which now obtain in every other
department of knowledge.‘7 Mr. Butler submitted what he called
Mr. Butler's report continues :— The general distribution of the subjects of the whole revision, it will have been perceived, has been made conformably to the admirable system of Judge Blackstone's Commentaries, which is known to have originated with Sir Matthew Hale, and to have been much
improved by Dr. Wood in his Institutes. It seemed to us, that the same arrangement which had reduced to order and system the floating and complicated principles of the unwritten common law, must necessarily be sufficient to comprehend the written laws, which are in their nature merely supplementary to the common law." We have accordingly applied the same system in detail, to the
various acts relating to property, and have
a "Project of the General Plan of Revision” which constituted the general outline of the scheme.
This was to
arrange the laws under the following divisions of classification (between these subdivisions the writer has inter
posed the headings of Field's California Code, which was Mr. Field's code adopted in its integrity) :— Div. I. Those which relate to the territory; the political divisions; the civil polity; and the internal administration of the state.
(Cal. Code, Pt. I.
The Political Code.)
Div. II. Those which relate to the acquisi tion, the enjoyment and the transmission of property, real and personal; to the domestic relations; and generally to all matters con nected with private rights.
(Cal. Code, Pt. II.
The Civil Code.)
Div. III. Those which relate to the judiciary establishments, and the mode of procedure in civil cases.
(Cal. Code, Pt. III. Code of Civil Procedure.) Div. IV. Those which relate to crimes and punishments; to the mode of procedure in criminal cases; and to prison discipline. (Cal. Code, Pt. IV. The Criminal Code.) ‘7 Assembly Journal, 1825, Appendix D. pp. 2, 3, 4; quoted from Preface Consolidated Laws of N. Y. 1909.
therein followed the plan of the Commentaries. with entire conviction, that from the very arrangement itself, no important omission could well occur.on
It will be observed that because certain changes are made, such as dropping ' the division Rights and Wrongs, the revisers made no pretense
that they were departing from the principles of Blackstone's general out line.‘1 ‘8 Assembly Journal, 1826, p. 887. 50 This is identical with Wilson's position, stated, Wilson's Vorks, preface, xv'iii. Quoted in Corpus
juris article, Green Bag, vol. 22, p. 61.
£4
00 Senate journal, 1827, p. 71. M An opinion of value: The late Austin Abbott wrote :— "The state of New York in 1827-30 led in giving scientific form to state legislation by the appoint ment of a commission of their ablest men to revise, rearrange, and improve our general laws. The result of their labors was to supersede a mass of acts standing for the most part in chronologic order by a systematic body of law in four parts : "I. The polity of the state. II. Rights of property and persons. III. Courts and Civil Procedure. IV. Criminal Law. "This new system was an example gradually widely followed throughout the Union. It attracted attention in Great Britain, and John Duer, one of our commissioners, was examined at length before a Parliamentary Commission for the sake of the
valuable exposition of statutory revision which
