shall only observe, that the conviction of the practicability and great importance of the change which we recommend, has been produced in our own minds by slow and careful deliberation, overcoming the prepossessions common to the profession to which we belong. That much care, diligence and research will be requisite to the successful execution of this plan, we freely admit; and it is with a full sense of the difficulties it may impose upon ourselves, that we urge its adoption: Yet we trust we may, without presumption, express our belief, that these difficulties may be overcome, the evils which may be apprehended effectually obviated, and the advantages which we have endeavored to indicate, to a considerable extent be secured and realized. *** Indeed, on a close examination of our whole scheme, in all its parts and bearings, we trust it will be found, that we propose to do nothing more than to free our written code from the prolixities, uncertainties, and confusion incident 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 all sciences, those principles of an enlarged philosophy, which now obtain in every other department of knowledge." (Assembly Journal 1825, Appendix D, pp. 2, 3, 4.)

After considerable deliberation by the legislature a new bill was enacted April twenty-first, eighteen hundred and twenty-five, granting the revisers the powers desired and replacing the name of Erastus Root with that of Henry Wheaton and allowing the former as compensation for the labor already bestowed by him on the work the sum of five hundred dollars.

The new bill allowed two years in which to complete the work. (L. 1825, ch. 324.) It repealed the act of eighteen hundred twenty-four (ch. 336) and was extended by the laws of eighteen hundred twenty-seven (ch. 242) until the next session of the legislature and further extended until the following session by the laws of eighteen hundred twenty-eight (ch. 321).

Under date of May eleventh, eighteen hundred twenty-five Mr. Butler prepared what he termed a "Projet of the General Plan of Revision," which was in substance the chart by which the revisers conducted their labors.

The revisers adopted the following general classification of subjects as the basis for the new revision:

"I. Those which relate to the territory; the political divisions; the civil polity; and the internal administration of the state.

II. Those which relate to the acquisition, the enjoyment, and the transmission of property, real and personal; to the domestic relations; and generally to all matters connected with private rights.

III. Those which relate to the judiciary establishments, and the mode of procedure in civil cases.

IV. Those which relate to crimes and punishments; to the mode of procedure in criminal cases; and to prison discipline.

V. Public laws of a local and miscellaneous character; including the laws concerning the city of New York; acts incorporating cities and villages; and such other acts of incorporation as it may be deemed necessary to publish." (Assembly Journal 1826, p. 887.)

With reference to the detailed distribution of subjects the revisers followed Judge Blackstone's Commentaries:

"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 that common law. We have accordingly applied the same system. in detail, to the various acts relating to property, and have therein followed the plan of the Commentaries, with entire conviction, that from the very arrangement itself, no important omission could well occur. It will be seen that the most of the titles of the chapters and of their subdivisions, are taken from Judge Blackstone's work, and that the arrangement of the text follows very nearly the order in which he has treated the subjects included in his first and second volumes. Other subjects, which are entirely of statutory origin, were easily reduced to the same order, and arranged in their proper places. With such high authority, sanctioned as it has been by the unanimous approbation of all the judges and lawyers in England, and in this country, whose opinions have been made public, we felt that we could proceed firmly and securely." (Senate Journal 1827, p. 71.)

In developing the portion of the revision relating to practice the revisers followed William Tidd's work on the Practice of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas :

"It will be perceived that the excellent plan of Mr. Tidd, in his treatise on practice, has been generally followed, with such deviations, as the subjects and our peculiar circumstances, required. A higher authority and a safer guide could not be found in the whole range of English and American writers. And when it is considered, that we have the contributions of our own countrymen on the same subjects, and forty volumes of reports of decisions in our own state courts, it will be admitted, that more copious and valuable materials, and more sound and enlightened

instruction, could not be desired. These reports enable the legislature to know, accurately, what defects have been discovered, and what remedies are needed." (Senate Journal 1828, p. 32.)

As to the general method for carrying out the work two interesting communications are to be found in the senate and assembly journals of eighteen hundred and twenty-six and eighteen hundred and twenty-seven:

"We have not been able to understand why the language of the written law should defy all attempt at improvement, more than the language of any other science or upon any other subject. It must be susceptible of emendation, by undergoing the process which improves every other production of human skill; and more especially when new interests and new wants arise, which it was not originally intended to embrace. Still, whenever it was practicable and consistent with the general plan of the revision, we have preferred to retain the important words of the present statutes, unless they have received a settled construction, which would not at once occur to an attentive reader. In these cases, the language of the courts has been substituted, whenever it appeared more plain and easy to be understood.' In doing so, and in expressing the supposed meaning of various statutes, we have been guided by the decisions of the chancellors and judges of our state, under whose examination almost every statute embraced in this part, has at intervals been brought. Those decisions form a body of practicable construction and exposition, as honorable to those who made them, as they have been useful. Their utility will be consummated by transferring them into the very body of the statute which they illustrate and explain." (Senate Journal 1827, p. 72.)

"But the most serious portion of our labor is the drawing up of the text itself. To reduce the sections to a proper brevity; to distribute them in a suitable manner; and to simplify the language in which they are written; it becomes absolutely necessary to write the whole with our own hands, and often to give our draughts several revisions, before we can so far satisfy ourselves, in regard to arrangement and expression, as to authorize the employment of a copyist. We can therefore derive but little aid from clerks or amanuenses; nor have we thought it consistent with the great importance of the trust confided to us, to leave to any one of our number exclusively, the completion of any part of the work, though by such a division of labor, our progress might have been hastened. To preserve uniformity of expression, and to make our performances in every sense of the words, joint and several, we have adopted the plan of allotting to each other, from time to time, convenient portions of the statutes; of committing the

draughts prepared by each to the separate and critical revisal of the others; and then of subjecting them to the joint examination of all." (Assembly Journal 1826, p. 888.)

The first report by the revisers to the legislature of eighteen hundred twenty-six was " Of Elections, other than for Militia and Town Officers," the work mainly of Mr. Duer.

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April thirteenth, eighteen hundred twenty-seven, Mr. Wheaton having been appointed chargé d'affaires of the United States to Denmark, resigned, and John C. Spencer, then thirty-nine years age, who had been a member of the state senate and who afterwards filled the positions of United States secretary of state, secretary of war, and secretary of the treasury, was appointed by Governor De Witt Clinton to the vacancy April twenty-first, eighteen hundred twenty-seven.

When the regular session of the legislature of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven adjourned, it was to meet again in special session on September eleventh, eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, "for the sole and only purpose of examining and re-enacting the revision of the statute laws of this state."

The legislature adopted rules under which the different chapters were referred to joint committees of the two houses, before whom the revisers appeared. The chapters as reported from the committees were considered by each house and after being passed upon were referred back to the revisers for their examination, giving to the revisers the power to propose amendments. (Senate Journal 1827, second meeting, p. 10.)

The session lasted for seventy-three days, from September eleventh, eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, to December fourth of the same year, and resulted in the enactment of the first and second parts, excepting chapter one of the second part.

The election of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven had placed two of the revisers in the legislature: Mr. Spencer as senator from the seventh district and Mr. Butler in the assembly from Albany.

Chapter one of the second part, the consideration of which was postponed by the special session of eighteen hundred and twentyseven, touching upon the complex subject of the rights of property, brought a full knowledge of the far-reaching purpose of the revisers before the law-making power. As the revisers said, the proposed revision, if enacted, "will sweep away an immense mass of useless refinements and distinctions; will relieve the law of real property to a great extent from its abstruseness and uncertainty, and render it, as a system, intelligible and consistent."

In their respective positions, Messrs. Spencer and Butler, both young men, bore the brunt of the battle for the reform they proposed.

The regular session closed with the revision still incomplete, and an extra session was appointed for September ninth, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight.

The extra session, having lasted eighty days, terminated on December tenth, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, and on that day the complete Revised Statutes were adopted.

The parts enacted by the session of eighteen hundred and twentyseven had gone into operation, and the remaining chapters, the work of the sessions of eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, were to take effect January first, eighteen hundred and thirty.

The Revised Statutes were enacted by the legislature at the general and special sessions held in eighteen hundred and twentyseven and eighteen hundred and twenty-eight and were signed in part by Governor De Witt Clinton and in part by acting Governor Nathaniel Pitcher. Concerning the new statutes the president pro tempore of the senate said in addressing the senate at the close of the session:

"We have just finished the revision of our laws: A revision which will as it develops itself, not only shed imperishable honors on the revisers of our state, but will be held up to the present and succeeding generations, as a monument of that inflexible virtue and sound legal talent which have so long characterized our people." (Senate Journal 1828, second meeting, p. 98.)

The publication of the Revised Statutes was placed in the hands of the revisers, and the volumes were issued as follows: First volume, January thirty-first, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine; second volume, June fifth, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine; third volume, September tenth, eighteen hundred and thirty.

The original text of the Revised Statutes was printed for the legislature, by Packard and Van Benthuysen, in eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, in folio form.

The first edition was copyrighted December thirty-first, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, for the benefit of the people of the state by Azariah C. Flagg, secretary of state, and was the only official edition of the Revised Statutes, the other editions being issued as private publications.

In eighteen hundred and thirty (L. 1830, ch. 259) an act was passed authorizing any person residing in the state to publish the whole or any part of the Revised Statutes, but to entitle it to be read in evidence, the printed certificate of the secretary of state, or of two of the revisers, that the text was a correct transcript of the Revised Statutes, was required to be contained in each publication. It was also provided that all editions should be paged in conformity to the first edition published by the state.

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