VAN NESS AND WOODWORTH REVISION OF 1813

Following the Kent and Radcliff revision, by the act of April fourth, eighteen hundred and eleven (L. 1811, ch. 150) William P. Van Ness and John Woodworth were authorized and appointed to collect and revise the laws of the state. The wording of this act is identical with the act under which the Kent and Radcliff revision was authorized.

On February sixth, eighteen hundred and twelve, the revisers sent a communication to the senate, which is entered in the senate journal for that day in the following terms:

"In execution of the duties assigned to us, by an act of the last session, we have now the honor of submitting to the Legislature a number of revised laws. Many other bills have been prepared, and will soon be presented.

In order to carry into effect the views of the Legislature in directing this revision of the laws, we have carefully collected together all that have at different times been passed relative to the same subject, and have endeavored to arrange their various provisions in plain and perspicuous succession; abbreviating them where that seemed requisite, and altering the language wherever it was discovered to be incorrect, or of doubtful construction.

In some cases whole laws have been re-written, and the object of supplementary or amendatory acts have frequently been accomplished, by inconsiderable additions to the original statutes.

As we conceived it within the scope of our authority, we have often supplied omissions, and attempted to remedy manifest imperfections, by appropriate alterations in the style and form of the bills: where provisions altogether new have appeared necessary, they have been incorporated into the revised law, and noted in the margin, or will be presented to the Legislature in some other way. We shall proceed with all diligence to fulfill the object of our appointment, but cannot state with confidence that the revision of the laws will be completed before the conclusion of the present session.

It is found on examination, that the number of laws now to be revised, is much greater than the revision in 1801. From the year 1789, or the 12th session, when the statutes of this state were revised by Mr. Jones and Mr. Varick, to the year 1801, or the 24th session, when they were revised by Judges Kent and Radcliff, 843 acts were passed by the Legislature. From the year 1801, to the close of the last, or the 34th session, 1738 acts have been passed; which, with the addition of the two volumes of revised laws, make a total of 2051, now to be examined and revised of those it is presumed that 1000 are public acts.

With the foregoing explanatory remarks, and with the reasons for not having completed the business committed to us, we have thought proper to accompany the first introduction of our bills." (Senate Journal 1812, pp. 31, 32.)

Other reports were made by the commissioners and the questions raised by the communications came before a joint committee of the legislature, and the views advanced by the revisers were practically authorized. The bills submitted by the commissioners were passed, were approved by the council of revision and took their place in the statute books as the Van Ness and Woodworth Revision, also cited as the Revised Laws, published under the authority of chapter two hundred and two of the laws of eighteen hundred and thirteen, in two volumes, printed in Albany by H. C. Southwick & Co., eighteen hundred and thirteen.

Thus far the revisions of the statutes were little more than a collection of the existing laws of the state. The aggregate result of the legislative sessions was not great, but the manner in which the laws were published and the circumstances of the times, made it a matter of public convenience that, from time to time, the obsolete and the repealed statutes should be eliminated and the law as it then existed should be presented in compact form.

The subject-matter of the Revised Laws (Van Ness and Woodworth Revision, 1813) shows the range of that revision and the character of the revisers' work, the first chapter being in relation to the taking of affidavits by magistrates, passed in seventeen hundred and eighty-four, and the last chapter being one to prevent trespasses on Indian lands, passed in eighteen hundred and thirteen. Between these chapters, the legislation of the period intervening, as amended and modified, was given without any serious attempt at classification other than an arrangement in chronological order of enactment.

REVISED STATUTES OF 1830

The constitution of the state was amended in eighteen hundred and twenty-one, taking effect January first, eighteen hundred and twenty-three, making many changes in the law and its administration, not the least of which was the omission of the provision in the constitution of seventeen hundred and seventy-seven making the statute law of England and Great Britain applicable to the

new state.

The legislature, since the Revised Laws (Van Ness and Woodworth Revision of 1813), had added largely to the statutes of the state and this volume of legislation with the changes made in the constitution of the state made it apparent that a new revision would be necessary.

Governor Yates, a lawyer and a judge of the supreme court from eighteen hundred and eight to eighteen hundred and twenty-two, was conversant with the defects of former revisions, and thoroughly aware of the necessity of a new one. He strongly advocated a new revision, and the senate committee to whom his communication was referred, reported upon his recommendations as follows:

"That in their opinion, a revision of the laws at this time is indispensably necessary, on account of the many laws that will become obsolete, and the great number that it will be necessary to amend, in order to comport with the provisions of the new constitution. In addition to this, the imperfection of the revision of 1813, has long been apparent to every person at all conversant with our laws. This imperfection is not to be attributed to the persons to whom this important trust was committed, but a defect in the law under which they acted. They were restricted to a revision of the public acts only, which was, in the opinion of your committee, an improper restriction. For it is well known to all persons conversant to the proceedings of our courts, or who have had occasion from other causes critically to examine our revised statutes, that a difficulty is frequently experienced, from an almost entire want of access to private acts of the legislature, which have since been in force, and which not unfrequently draw after them a perpetuity in their consequences, deeply affecting the interest of the community. Your committee therefore are of opinion, that the public good requires a complete and more extensive revision and accurate classification of the several statutes of this state; and they are persuaded, that if this trust is properly executed, it will supersede the necessity and expense of future revisions of existing laws." (Senate Journal 1823, p. 188.)

By the act of November twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and twenty-four (L. 1824, ch. 336), chancellor James Kent, Erastus Root, who was the presiding officer of the senate, and Benjamin F. Butler, then twenty-nine years of age, were appointed to revise the statutes. This act followed the general line of the former revisions, and, probably, nothing more than a compilation of the statutes then in force was contemplated.

Judge James Kent, the reviser first named, had been associated with Jacob Radcliff in the revision under the act of eighteen hundred (Kent and Radcliff Revision). From seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, when he became one of the puisne judges of the supreme court, until eighteen hundred and twenty-three, when he retired from the chancellorship, he held a commanding position on the bench of the state. The then new constitution closed the tenure of judicial officers at the age of sixty years, and under it Judge Kent was retired at a period when his experience and judicial

ability united to make him the most useful. Judge Kent declining the appointment, Governor Yates filled the vacancy by naming John Duer, later chief justice of the superior court of the city of New York.

Benjamin F. Butler was the only one of those originally named who continued to work to the close of the labors of the revisers and was the one most actively identified with the work. He held a commanding position at the bar of the state and subsequently filled many important public positions, such as attorney-general of the United States, secretary of war under President Jackson and district attorney for the southern district of New York under President Van Buren.

General Root did not agree with his colleagues as to the plan for pursuing the work and on the assembling of the legislature in eighteen hundred and twenty-five Duer and Butler, the junior revisers, sent in a communication outlining the plan they proposed to adopt and requesting that the powers required for rendering it effective be conferred upon them.

In this communication they proposed in general that the whole written law should be gathered under appropriate titles and classified and arranged in a clear and scientific manner:

"Completely to attain the objects of the legislature, we conceive it indispensable that all the statutes now in force should be carefully revised; and that the persons charged with that duty, should not only reduce all acts relating to the same subject, into one, and conform them, in such particulars as may be necessary, to the provisions of the amended constitution, as specially directed in the act of the twenty-seventh of November last; but should also make such other alterations in style, in the length and structure of sentences, and the arrangement of sections, as will render the statutes more concise, perspicuous, and intelligible. We also think that our whole written law should be comprised under appropriate : titles; that those titles should be classified in their natural order; and more especially, that the various provisions of each statute should be arranged in the clearest and most scientific method, which the nature of the subject will permit. We are aware that such a revision of the statutes will differ very materially from any heretofore attempted in this state, and will greatly increase the labor and responsibility of the revisers; but so far as we are intrusted with the performance of this important duty, we are prepared to undertake it on the plan now suggested.

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are fully aware of the responsibility that we incur by proposing to the legislature a new mode of conducting a revision of the laws, and are prepared to encounter the charge, so easily preferred, of rash and unnecessary innovation. In reply to such a charge, we

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.