The Proposed Codification of Our Common Law; A Paper Prepared at the Request of the Committee of the Bar Association of the City of New York, Appointed to Oppose the Measure - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1884. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE PROPOSED CODIFICATION OF OUR COMMON LAW. Whoever glances over the varying systems of law exhibited by civilized States, will perceive that in some, as in England and with us, the great body of the rules which determine the rights of men in respect to their persons and property, have never been directly enacted in statutory form. They have their origin in the popular standard, or ideal, of justice as applied to human action, and the usages and practices sanctioned by it. The system, therefore, rests upon an original, but ever growing, body of custom, and the rules thus established have been, through a long succession of centuries, expounded, applied, enlarged, modified and administered by a class of experts -- lawyers and • judges -- who are supposed to devote their lives to the study of the system and to the work of adapting it to the ever shifting phases which human affairs assume. The cultivating and perfecting, of this body of rules, which is called "the law" is a part, and a most important part, in the natural growth of the civilization in which they are found. The means of ascertaining what these rules are--in other words, the evidence of what the law is -- is found, in any given case, by ascertaining what the judges have determined in like cases, and by maxims and principles which, from long adoption and frequent application, have become familiar and authoritative. In other States, however, such as most of those on the Continent of Europe, the system of law is found to be different. There,'the rules which perform the same functions in society, stand, to a large extent, in the form of positive statutes, or Codes, enacted by the arbitrary power of the sovereign, or by the authority of a legislative assembly, where such a body exists. It wi...
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