The Unification of American Law change as possible; that, without a recog nized standard, the unification of Ameri can law is impossible. Nothing could be more fortunate than the gradual and unconscious approach which has so far been made towards such an ideal. The fact that thirty-eight states and terri
tories have been able to adopt a Uniform Negotiable Instruments Act; the fact that eighteen states and territories have been
able to adopt a Uniform Warehouse Re ces'pts Act, puts the fact beyond ques tion that all may be induced gradually
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law has probably closed, and the result is embodied in a tangled mass of un digested precedents at which Roman jurists would have stood aghast. The first step to be taken in order to extri cate ourselves from such ‘a condition
involves the construction of a typical and scientific code of state law, substan tive and adjective, condensing within a reasonably narrow compass the fruits of
our entire legal development. Such fruits should be so formulated as to embrace all the leading subjects in which the states
have a common interest. The experience
to adopt a scientifically constructed state code embracing every other subject
wezhave had alreadyin the making of state
in which they have a common interest.
codes should greatly facilitate the work
Savigny made a revelation when he said
which should be one rather of selection than creation. The "House of Gover nors” can easily arrange an equitable scheme by which all the stat% may contribute, upon the basis of popula
that law is the natural outcome of the consciousness of the people like their social history of their language; that it
is part and parcel of the national life. By the operation of natural forces the states are rapidly moving towards the inevitable uniformity through the cease
less pressure of commercial necessity. That process needs only to be hastened and moulded by artificial means.
When
we add our experience to that of Eng land we have had, counting from the Year Books, six centuries of judge-made law, the inevitable prelude to scientific
legislation. It is a truism with jurists of the' historical school that remedial equity is everywhere older than remedial legislation. With the reign of Alexander Severus the power of growth in Roman
judge-made law seems to have been exhausted. From that time the history of Roman law is the history of the Imperial constitutions and of the attempts made to subject the unwieldy mass to codification. Thus it was that the departing spirit' of the creative epoch of Roman law infused itself into the voluminous rescripts of Diocletian and his successors. The creative epoch of English and American judge-made
tion, to the expense of maintaining an interstate code commission, to consist
of jurists of the highest order. jurists should
be at
Such
once scientific
and practical men of the type of David Dudley Field, William M. Evarts and John C. Spooner. As the
Code Napoleon was completed from the first draft to the finish in four years,
certainly that time should sufiice for this undertaking. In Germany or France
such a work would be executed without the slightest hesitation. After the fin ished product becomes accessible the state legislatures would no doubt adopt it, under the pressure of public opinion,
by the normal process through which state codes are now adopted or revised at stated intervals. After a recognized standard has once been formulated, its rapid ac
ceptance would be inevitable. The ex pense of the Interstate Code Commission should be borne of course by the states themselves; their dignity and indepen
dence forbid an appeal for aid to any in dividual or institution for such a purpose.
