The Sources of the Civil Code of Louisiana; Address Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Bar Association

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Sources of the (Hhnl nlU' of ICouiaiaua There was a time the jurisprudence of Louisiana commanded the attention and held the esteem of the profession everywhere. It was the morning of our law, and the science was illuminated and its recesses explored under the rays of the Civil Law. Great principles were treated philosophically, and the classic period of our legal history had its foundation established on the reason and authority of the ancient masters, as construed by the later civilians and as applied in a broad and comprehensive spirit to the needs and conditions of a new country. It is believed the high position Which our system then attained has been to some extent altered, and, while the Civil Law of Louisiana continues to occupy a unique position in the jurisprudence of the United States, still it must now be said that in a certain sense it appears to be on trial before the bar of legal opinion. One of our associates in this organization has stated some reasons which may serve to explain the peculiar situation. It is his belief that judicial construction has had a tendency to import Common Law into our jurisprudence, perhaps unintentionally, or because so much of our system is not dependent upon the Civil Law of France andRome. He lays the blame upon court and legislature, and he warns us that we will soon lose touch altogether with the law of our origin unless a higher standard of legal education is required by the Legislature or by the Supreme Court. While (to go no further) we have the excellent authority of Semmes and of Howe for the version that it is still necessary to go back to the sources for all that is not covered by decision and by statute, there is really no basic difference in theory between these masters. The principle is acknowledged that we should...