Editing Codification (law) (section)

==== The early codification movement ====


In the United States, a critique of the inherited English tradition of [[common law]] and an argument for systematic codification was championed by the [[Society of United Irishmen|United Irish]] exiles [[William Sampson (lawyer)|William Sampson]] (admitted to the New York bar in 1806),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walsh |first=Walter J. |date=2014 |title=Rights, Revolutions, Republics, 1750-1850: The Work and Works of William Sampson (1764—1836): A Chronology |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43234379 |journal=American Journal of Irish Studies |volume=11 |pages=(41–88), 42 |issn=2165-3224 |jstor=43234379}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walsh |first=Walter |date=2005 |title=The Priest-Penitent Privilege: An Hibernocentric Essay in Postcolonial Jurisprudence |url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol80/iss4/3 |journal=80 Indiana Law Journal 1037 (2005) |volume=80 |issue=4 |issn=0019-6665}}</ref> and [[William Duane (journalist)|William Duane]] publisher of the Jeffersonian paper, the ''[[Philadelphia Aurora]].''<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bushey |first=Glenn Leroy |date=1938 |title=William Duane, Crusader for Judicial Reform |url=https://journals.psu.edu |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=V |issue=3 (July |pages=(141-156), 144}}</ref> In 1810, Sampson published ''Trial of the Journeymen Cordwainers of the City of New-York for a Conspiracy to Raise Their Wages,''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sampson |first=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o_c-AAAAYAAJ |title=Trial of the Journeymen Cordwainers of the City of New-York for a Conspiracy to Raise Their Wages . . . |publisher=I. Riley |year=1810 |location=New York City |language=en}}</ref> commentary on his (unsuccessful) argument in ''The People v Melvin'' (1806) to quash an indictment of illegal worker combination. Insisting on the supremacy of the elected legislature, Sampson's objected that the prosecution was reasoning "abstractedly" from principles of English common law without any reference to statute. It was this, alone, that allowed them to deny journeymen the right to "conspire against starvation" while, without notice or challenge, leaving master tradesmen in a "permanent conspiracy" to suppress wages.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Howe |first=Mark De Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1gGIW0dl1DEC |title=Readings in American Legal History |date=2001 |publisher=Beard Books |isbn=978-1-58798-094-7 |pages=435–436, 141 |language=en}}</ref> He went on to argue that an "indiscriminating adoption of common law" had caused the [[New World|New-World]] society to carry over "barbarities" from the Old: laws that "can only be executed upon those not favoured by fortune with certain privileges" and that in some cases operate "entirely against the poor".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Howe |first=Mark De Wolfe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1gGIW0dl1DEC |title=Readings in American Legal History |date=2001 |publisher=Beard Books |isbn=978-1-58798-094-7 |pages=435–436, 141 |language=en}}</ref> 

Sampson's summary ''Discourse on the Common Law'' (1823),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sampson |first=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qrwrg7F3VHEC |title=An Anniversary Discourse: Delivered Before the Historical Society of New York, on Saturday, December 6, 1823; Showing the Origin, Progress, Antiquities, Curiosities, and Nature of the Common Law |date=1824 |publisher=E. Bliss and E. White |language=en}}</ref> holding common law to be contrary to the ethos a democratic republic and urging, with reference to the [[Napoleonic Code|Code Napoleon]], its replacement by a general law of reference, was hailed as "the most sweeping indictment of common law idealism ever written in America" .<ref>Maxwell (1967), p. 240.</ref> It was a source of inspiration for [[Edward Livingston]]<ref name="Subrin">{{cite journal |last1=Subrin |first1=Stephen N. |date=Autumn 1988 |title=David Dudley Field and the Field Code: A Historical Analysis of an Earlier Procedural Vision |url=https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:332404/fulltext.pdf |journal=Law and History Review |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=311–373 |doi=10.2307/743686 |jstor=743686 |s2cid=145512997 |hdl-access=free |hdl=2047/d20002460}}</ref> who drew upon French, and other European, civil law in drafting the 1825 Louisiana Code of Procedure.<ref name=":02">{{Citation |last=Clark |first=David S. |title=Development of Comparative Law in the United States |date=2019-03-21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cvqNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA159 |work=The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law |pages=147–180 |editor-last=Reimann |editor-first=Mathias |access-date=2020-05-17 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198810230.013.6 |isbn=978-0-19-881023-0 |editor2-last=Zimmermann |editor2-first=Reinhard|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Later, Sampson's efforts appeared vindicated in New York where in 1846 a new [[Constitution of New York|state constitution]] directed that the whole body of state law be reduced to a written and systematic code, and in [[David Dudley Field II|David Dudley Field]]'s subsequent drafting of the New York Code of Civil Procedure (1848).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Subrin |first=Stephen N. |date=1988 |title=David Dudley Field and the Field Code: A Historical Analysis of an Earlier Procedural Vision |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/743686 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=311–373 |doi=10.2307/743686 |issn=0738-2480 |jstor=743686 |s2cid=145512997 |hdl=2047/d20002460|hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=William Sampson |url=https://history.nycourts.gov/figure/william-sampson/ |access-date=2023-01-11 |website=Historical Society of the New York Courts |language=en-US}}</ref>

Sampson sought to disassociate codification from the doctrinaire insistence on positive legislation that had marked [[Jeremy Bentham]]'s championing of the cause in Britain. But, focussing on the French experience, critics thought it sufficient to comment on the futility of trying to compress human behaviour into rigid categories.<ref>Maxwell (1967), p. 246.</ref> President [[Thomas Jefferson]] had remained neutral when Duane's attempted to force the issue in the 1805 election in Pennsylvania. Federalists joined with "Constitutional Republicans" to defeat the reform agenda.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bushey |first=Glenn Leroy |date=1938 |title=William Duane, Crusader for Judicial Reform |url=https://journals.psu.edu |journal=Pennsylvania History |volume=V |issue=3 (July |pages=(141-156), 153-156}}</ref>