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the laws of the colony, omitting the expired, the repealed, and the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 was established) were assigned to me; the British statutes,
from that period to the present day, to Mr. Wythe; and the Virginia laws
to Mr. Pendleton. As the law of Descents, and the Criminal law, fell of
course within my portion, I wished the committee to settle the leading
principles of these, as a guide for me in framing them; and, with
respect to the first, I proposed to abolish the law of primogeniture,