Special Committee on the Classification and Restatement of the Law:

James D. Andrews, of New York:

The subject of the classification of the law has been one that has enlisted the attention of leading members of the Bar during all the period of our American legal history. The matter was brought to the attention directly of this Association in 1889 by a letter from Henry T. Terry, and at that time a special committee was appointed to consider the subject. That led to two or three reports, the last one when I was Chairman of the committee, but none of the reports discussed the subject then in any other light than an academic subject to be considered and the details thought out.

There was a period of cogitation in which all could see the need of something of that kind, but none could see any methods whereby such an effort could be brought to a successful and practical issue in such a manner as to be a benefit to the law and to the people and to every individual in the country. Therefore, on the motion of the committee that special committee was discontinued, and an effort was taken up soon thereafter to ascertain the opinion of the members of the Association on the advisability and necessity of attempting the matter. The result was that 100 of the great jurists and statesmen of this country, and some statesmen of foreign countries, set forth a decided consensus of opinion on the necessity for it and on the practicability of it, provided there was an adequate organization. Fifty-five distinguished members of the Bar got together in the form of an Academy of Jurisprudence in the summer of 1914 with a view to formulating the necessary practical organization, for, after all, organization is at the bottom of all great enterprises-but the war intervened and that suspended all public operations.

The war, however, did not suspend consideration of the subject, and at our meeting in 1916 the distinguished President, whom we all delight to honor, Elihu Root, summed up everything that had preceded that particular time in a climacteric sentence embodied in the report, when he said:

"We are approaching a point where we shall run into confusion unless we adopt the simple and natural course of avoiding confusion by classification. The problem of classifying and

simplifying our law involves the need to carry to the great mass of lawyers, present and future, a comprehensive and discriminating understanding of the legal principles which form the thread of Ariadne for guidance through the labyrinth of decisions."

All that has been said on this subject for the last thousand years is summed up in these words, and this opinion is from at jurist whose name is honored wherever jurisprudence and law are valued.

At the next meeting of this Association the matter was laid before it, and a special committee was appointed with the distinguished President as Chairman. During that year the committee took no other action than the employment of a gentleman well known to you all to spend that length of time which no committee can spend upon a detailed examination of what had been gathered together in the nature of plans and materials, and his report was received back by the committee and a portion of it is contained in this report.

At the last meeting at Boston there was a report recommending further consideration of the subject and the enlargement of the committee. The report of this committee directs attention to the fact that at no time has there ever been any comprehensive attempt in the United States to treat our laws scientifically, comprehensively and as a unitary structure. They point also that after the classification is agreed upon and formulated the work differs nothing in degree or extent from that which has been performed several times, but it differs in quality and character because of the fact that it will be assured to be done with the cooperation and active endeavor of the best legal minds of the profession.

The subject of the restatement of the law has fired the ambition of rulers and philosophers in all ages. I think there is no jurist who will contest the fact that the great restatement of the law under the auspices of the Roman Emperor Justinian through the medium of the Pandects cast as broad a light across the shadow of civilization as any other act in the annals of human progress. As a distinguished President of this Association has said, the Roman people who once held dominion of the world by the sword now hold a half dominion over the world by the silent empire of their law. One hundred of the greatest jurists of this country have specifically approved this very movement. Three score and

ten of the greatest journals have evidenced the public's interest in this great movement. Of the great jurists I only quote from one. I will read a sentence from the last letter that the distinguished former President of this Association, the late John F. Dillon, wrote in reference to it:

"We have in this country in the decisions of the national and state tribunals the richest mines of judicial wisdom and legal principles as applied to transactions and conditions of modern life that exist in any country in the world. The priceless treasures of these mines are greatly diminished not only to the legal profession but to the people of the nation and states for the want of such a work as this memorandum proposes. I heartily endorse in spirit, the purposes and scheme of this great project. It has all the elements of a patriotic and philanthropic object of the highest national and public importance.

"Its execution must not be put upon any lower basis than that it intimately concerns the public and general welfare, present and future, on matters of the supremest moment to every man, woman and child in the United States."

The committee unanimously recommends the going forward with a practical organization capable of carrying out a project of this kind. It recalls the organization of the American Academy, and suggests the co-operation of this Association with that organization in this work. Mr. Root expressed himself on that specific subject with no uncertain terms when he said:

"A few men are already taking the lead in classification. Some very able and public spirited lawyers have been for some years urging the organization of a definite specific movement for the restatement of the law, for a new corpus juris civilis. They are quite right. It ought to be done."

This is raising words to their highest power, and I think that enough has been stated so that I may confidently expect you gentlemen to join in the resolution that the committee offers, and I feel that for the benefit of the people, for the greatness of the nation and for the glory of the American Bar it must be done. I move the passage of the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the report of the Committee on Classification. and Restatement be received and adopted, and that said committee be continued, and that it be and hereby is authorized and directed, in conjunction with the Executive Committee, to take such steps as may be deemed necessary and expedient to co-operate with any body which has for its purpose the carrying on of the proposed work of classification and restatement of law."

Edward Q. Keasbey:

I would like to ask who the body is that is to perform this work.

James D. Andrews:

The idea of the committee was not to designate any particular association, but to let the Executive Committee of the American Bar Association and this committee have the discretion of working out the details.

Edward Q. Keasbey:

I was wondering whether this contemplates a code of laws or a statement of the common law as it is to-day.

James D. Andrews:

Never in the history of the legal profession has there been such unanimity as there is now on the subject of jurisprudence, and upon this subject there are no longer any two schools of law such as divided the Romans. There is perfect harmony and unity. The report covers the points suggested by Mr. Keasbey in the following sentences:

"It is unnecessary at this time to determine how and in precisely what manner the work shall proceed, but it is important that some organization shall be created. The details may safely be left to those who are to do the work. As is well known to many, the preliminary organization of the American Academy of Jurisprudence, which has a like object in view, was effected prior to the war. This Academy will co-operate no doubt, and the committee suggests that this Association co-operate with it and utilize it for the purpose of a permanent organization."

Edward Q. Keasbey:

The question in my mind was whether the purpose of the committee was to prepare a code of laws based upon the common law, or merely to gather together a declaration of what has become the law as heretofore developed. Will the result change the principle from a common-law principle to the principle of an established code? Something has been said, as I gather, that the tendency is to be in that direction.

We all know that to make a definite statutory declaration of the law changes the whole method of the law and retards all healthy growth of law. Whether the result is to be a statement of the law as heretofore developed, and whether that statement is to change the processes of legal action is what I should like to know.

James D. Andrews:

It would be presumptuous on my part as Chairman of the committee to state what form the proposed classification and restatement would take, but it is obvious, from the insistence upon the word "classification," that it must be a logically arranged matter. From the statement in the report it is to be comprehensive, it is to be exhaustive and concise, and certain, and it is to be supported with authority which would allow those who wish to investigate a question to trace it to its remote origin and antiquity. There is completeness, fundamentalness, conciseness and comprehensiveness. Manifestly such a thing as that could not be a code. There is no code that was ever made that is more than a partial restatement of the law. This ambitious project and there is no concealment that it is an ambitious project--aims at something different from what has been attempted. I take it, after so many years of careful and painstaking efforts, that the Bar Association will approve the simple proposition that we co-operate in an attempt to devise ways and means and an organization capable of carrying out this great work.

D. L. King, of Arkansas:

I do not exactly understand the question, but, as I gather from the remarks that I have heard since I came in to this meeting, the question is whether this code that is proposed is to be based upon common law or upon the civil law, the Napoleon code or the English law. I am from a common-law state, Arkansas, but I would not be ready to say that there should be a uniform law based entirely upon the English law. I recognize the fact that England is a great nation. But I also recognize the fact that Jefferson lived and Napoleon lived, and I think when you consider the "Louisiana Purchase," Jefferson made the best trade that this nation ever made. I feel like paying a