Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/493

 American Editorial Comment upon the Corpus Juris Project

467

They propose that a Foundation of Juris prudence be established by some millionainth a million-dollar foundation-which may be drawn upon for the support of this project. An editorial board of jurists of acknowledged ability would, with the assistance of leading lawyers and law school men, divide American law scientiﬁcally into its various subjects and proceed to develop them in fashion that was philosophical. Then the American lawyer would have in some twenty volumes, not a code nor an encyclopedia, but a well-pro portioned statement of the legal principles of American law. Professor Roscoe Pound of the University of Chicago Law School is quoted in approval of the plan:— “Our jurisprudence of rules is breaking down obviously, and in the process is injuring seriously public respect for law. A great

of the United States and with remarkable unanimity and enthusiasm they give it approval. . r. While the subject is primarily of interest to lawyers, judges and students of the law, it has a vital interest for the people generally, inasmuch as the lack of any comprehensive work setting forth the prin ciples of American law is responsible, in no small degree, for the law's delay and the expense, and sometimes the impossibility, of obtaining justice. What is the law and where is it to be found? The statutes express only a part of it. The law is to be found in the decisions of the federal and state courts, in digests and compilations, and in session laws. An immense mass of material must usually be examined to dis cover the law. The labor and time required are exhausting. Each year the burden be

deal of our law in books is not law in action,

state and federal, and the new state and federal court decisions. The lawyers feel the need of a scientiﬁc statement of the principles of the American common law. . . . Precedents keep on piling up until chaos is threatened, and it is believed that the time has come for a. philosophic, scientiﬁc state ment of principles which would be cited as authority by lawyers and judges in the future. . . . It should not be prepared and issued asa private business enterprise for proﬁt, although he thinks the work would ultimately become proﬁtable. He appeals to philanthropists to establish a $1,000,000 foundation and he outlines a plan under which the best legal brains of the country would be engaged in preparing statements of the principles of the different branches that would go to make

not only because the mass of legal detail is too cumbrous for actual administration, but often because, at the crisis of decision, judges cannot but feel that they ought not to apply the mechanical details they ﬁnd in the books in the hard and fast way that rules, as dis tinct from principles, are to be applied. But where are they to ﬁnd the principles? There are suggestions here and there, and a powerful judge now and then draws a principle from the mass of rules.

In general, however, the

courts are too often forced to reach a con clusion on the large equities of the cause and forage in the books for cases to support it. This makes our written opinions a mere ritual. Sooner or later a system of our law must come.” It is a big conception and reflects credit upon the men who propose it. Such a project requires professional courage. Judges, lawyers and litigants would beneﬁt from the existence of a Corpus juris, and the preparation of one is not, as Mr. Alexander portrays it, beyond our reach.

Tacoma Lodger: NEED OF A WORK ON AMERICAN LAW A very complete plan for the preparation

and publication of a work on the entire body of American law, or the Corpus juris as the lawyers call it, has been prepared by Lucien

Hugh Alexander of the Philadelphia bar co operating with Prof. George W. Kirchwey and Dr. James Dewitt Andrews. The plan was

submitted to leaders of the bench and bar

comes greater because of the new statutes,

up a comprehensive treatise on the body of the American common law. The opinion is expressed by distinguished lawyers that such a work would tend to check the annual increase in session laws. At the same time the tendency would be to reduce litigation, for the law would become more generally understood if it were stated in general principles. Advocates of uniform legislation for the diﬁ'erent states see in the proposed undertaking a great aid to uni forrnity. “The unfortunate condition in which the system for the administration of justice now is, by reason of the unmanageable and rapidly increasing mass of authorites," says Mr. Alexander, “is of course not known