tion of the state, as adopted in 1846,
"ordered the appointment of two commissions, one to reduce into a
written and a systematic code the whole body of the law of the state,
and the other to revise, reform, simplify and abridge the rules and
practice, pleadings, &c., of the courts of record." By an act of 1847,
the state legislature declared that the body of substantive law should
be contained in three codes--the Political, the Civil and the Penal. The
works of both commissions, completed in 1865, filled six volumes,
containing the Code of Civil Procedure (including the law of evidence),
the Book of Forms, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Political Code,
the Penal Code and the Civil Code. In the introduction to the Civil Code
it was claimed that in many departments of the law the codes "provided
for every possible case, so that when a new case arises it is better
that it should be provided for by new legislation." The New York code
was defective in the important points of definition and arrangement. It
formed the basis, however, of the present codes of civil and criminal
procedure in the state of New York. Much interest has attached to the
Penal Code drawn up by Edward Livingston (q.v.) for the state of
Louisiana. The system consists of a Code of Crime and Punishments, a
Code of Procedure, a Code of Evidence, a Code of Reform and Prison
Discipline, and a Book of Definitions. "Though the state for which the
codes were prepared," said Chief Justice Chase, "neglected to avail
itself of the labours assigned and solicited by itself, they have
proved, together with their introductions, a treasure of suggestions to
which many states are indebted for useful legislation." Most of the
other states in the United States have codes stating the law of pleading
in civil actions, and such states are often described as code states to
distinguish them from those adhering to the older forms of action,
divided between those at law and those at equity. A few states have
general codes of political and civil rights. The general drift of
legislation and of public sentiment in the United States is towards the
extension of the principle of codification, but the contrary view has
been ably maintained (see J. C. Carter, _Provinces of the Written and
the Unwritten Law_, New York, 1889).

Since the time of Bentham, the codification of the law of England has
been the dream of the most enlightened jurists and statesmen. In the
interval between Ben