rned,
I moved and presented a bill for the revision of the laws; which
was passed on the 24th of October, and on the 5th of November, Mr.
Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and myself, were
appointed a committee to execute the work. We agreed to meet at
Fredericksburg to settle the plan of operation, and to distribute the
work. We met there accordingly, on the 13th of January, 1777. The first
question was, whether we should propose to abolish the whole existing
system of laws, and prepare a new and complete Institute, or preserve
the general system, and only modify it to the present state of things.
Mr. Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition in favor of ancient
things, was for the former proposition, in which he was joined by Mr.
Lee. To this it was objected, that to abrogate our whole system would
be a bold measure, and probably far beyond the views of the legislature;
that they had been in the practice of revising, from time to time,
the laws of the colony, omitting the expired, the repealed, and the
obsolete, amending only those retained, and probably meant we should
now do the same, only including the British statutes as well as our own:
that to compose a new Institute, like those of Justinian and Bracton, or
that of Blackstone, which was the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would
be an arduous undertaking, of vast research, of great consideration and
judgment; and when reduced to a text, every word of that text, from
the imperfection of human language, and its incompetence to express
distinctly every shade of idea, would become a subject of question and
chicanery, until settled by repeated adjudications; that this would
involve us for ages in litigation, and render property uncertain, until,
like the statutes of old, every word had been tried and settled by
numerous decisions, and by new volumes of reports and commentaries; and
that no one of us, probably, would undertake such a work, which, to be
systematical, must be the work of one hand. This last was the opinion of
Mr. Wythe, Mr. Mason, and myself. When we proceeded to the distribution
of the work, Mr. Mason excused himself, as, being no lawyer, he felt
himself unqualified for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee
excused himself on the same ground, and died indeed in a short time. The
other two gentlemen, therefore, and myself, divided the work among
us. The common law and statutes to the 4 James I. (when our separate
legislature w