The Genesis of Nineteenth-Century Civil Codes in the United States

Julie Rocheton, Ph.D. (2021), Universitat de València, Master in Legal History (2013), Université Pantheon-Assas, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Acknowledgements


List of Illustrations


Abbreviations


Codification


Introduction

  In Search of a Definition of the Civil Code


  Methodology


  Bibliography




Part 1

 Introduction to Part One. Contextualizing Codification

  Nineteenth-Century Codification—Paradigm Shifts


  Civil Codes in a Global Context


  Codification in the US Context




1 Not a Movement, but a Discussion The National Codification Framework

 1.1 Grasping the Common Law

 1.1.1 Common Law versus Rationalization Science


 1.1.2 Archaisms within the Common Law


 1.1.3 The Uncertainty of Common Law Rules


 1.1.4 A Common Law of Uncertain Shape




 1.2 Emancipation from Common Law

 1.2.1 Liberation from English Legacy


 1.2.2 Codification as Liberation from the Legal Profession




 1.3 Codifier Jeremy Bentham and the United States


 1.4 Concluding Remarks: Was There an American Codification Movement?




2 The Development of Private Law Codification in the US States

 2.1 The Most Famous US Civil Codes: the Civil Codes of Louisiana

 2.1.1 The Survival of Civil Law in Louisiana


 2.1.2 The Evolution of the Civil Codes of Louisiana during the Nineteenth Century




 2.2 Common Law Civil Codes in Nineteenth-Century United States

 2.2.1 The States of Georgia and New York: One Year, Two Civil Codes, Two Models


 2.2.2 The Afterlives of the Civil Code of New York





Part 2

3 Creating a Fertile Ground for Codification

 3.1 Official Legal Justification behind Codification


 3.2 State Institutions as Factors Influencing Codification

 3.2.1 The Impact of the Colonial Tradition


 3.2.2 The Direct Link between Codification and the Age of the State


 3.2.3 Civil Codes and Political Parties




 3.3 Population Migration Patterns and Civil Codes


 3.4 No Civil Code without a Man

 3.4.1 The Civil Codes: a Fuel for Dispute between Influential Men


 3.4.2 The Civil Codes, Legal Tools Advocated by Individual Men


 3.4.3 The Field Network




 3.5 Concluding Remarks




4 Inside the US Civil Codes

 4.1 The Sources of Nineteenth-Century US Civil Codes

 4.1.1 The Civil Codes of Louisiana


 4.1.2 The Sources of a Code Like No Other, the Code of Georgia


 4.1.3 Sources of the Civil Code of New York and Its Heirs


 4.1.4 Comparative Study of the Use of Different Sources within the US Civil Codes




 4.2 The Shape of US Civil Codes

 4.2.1 Analysis of the Form of Civil Code Articles: Syntax and Type of Provisions


 4.2.2 Bilingualism and the Special Case of Louisiana


 4.2.3 The Structure of the Civil Codes: an Assertion of US Uniqueness





Part 3

5 One Nation, Distinct Conceptions of Codification

 5.1 US Civil Codes: Compilation, Innovation, and Recodification


 5.2 The Circulation of the Civil Codes and the Snowball Effect


 5.3 The American Dictionaries and Codification




6 The Civil Codes in Action

 6.1 The Codification Process within the States, a Legal Turn

 6.1.1 The institutional Mechanics of Codification


 6.1.2 The Code Commission and Commissioners


 6.1.3 The Submission of Codes and Their Possible Adoption




 6.2 The Peripheral Articles of the Codes

 6.2.1 The Establishment of the Interpretation of the Code


 6.2.2 The Abrogative Articles in the Civil Codes




 6.3 The Application of the US Civil Codes

 6.3.1 A Civil Code: the Main and Exclusive Source of Private Law in Louisiana


 6.3.2 The Common Law Codes as Subsidiary Sources of Law




 Conclusion




Timetable


Appendix


Index