FINAL

One would suppose that a democracy which believes in the absolute panacea of law-making would take particular pains with the forms of its legislation, to have its statutes clear, in good English, not contradictory, properly expressed and properly authenticated.  You would certainly suppose that the people who believe that everything should be done under a written law would take the greatest pains to see that law was official; also, that it was clear, so as to be “understanded of the people”; also, that it did not contain a thousand contradictions and uncertainties.  When our—­I will not say wiser, but certainly better educated—­forefathers met in national convention to adopt a constitution, one of the first things they did was to appoint a “Committee on Style.”  It is needless to say that no such committee exists in any American legislature.  You would suppose they would take pains to see that all the laws were printed in one or more books where the people could find them.  This is not the case in New York or in many of our greater States.  You would also suppose that when they passed another law on the same subject they would say how much of the former law they meant to repeal, but in many States that also is not done.  It would probably be too much to hope that they should not confuse the subject with a new law on a matter already completely covered; but the form of their legislation should be improved at least in the first three particulars I have mentioned.

What is the fact?  The secretary of one new State reports that the laws, as served up to him by the legislature, are “so full of contradictions, omissions, repetitions, bad grammar, and bad spelling” that it has been impossible for him to print them and make any sense; the bad grammar and the bad spelling, at least, he has, therefore, presumed to correct.  But what should surprise us still more is, that in very few of our States is there any authentic edition of the laws whatever, and quite a number do not publish their constitutions!

The worst condition of all is found in the national legislation of Congress, until very recently in the great State of New York, and in those States which have adopted the code system generally.  I do not say this as an opponent of general codes, but I am constrained to note as a fact that those States are the ones which have their legislation in the worst shape of any.  The charm of the statute theory is that the half-educated lawyer or layman supposes he can find all the laws written in one book.  Abraham Lincoln even is said to have had the major part of his “shelf of best books” composed of an old copy of the statutes of Indiana, though I can find no traces of such reading in the style of his Gettysburg address.  But how far is this democratic claim that the laws of a State are all contained in one book borne out by the facts?