«The coming shadow of a mighty war.» the reviews in anglo-american battle about codification of the common law (1820-1835)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17561/rej.n20.a14Keywords:
Common Law, Civil Law, Codification, revues juridiques, Jeremy Bentham, Carl von Savigny, William Sampson, Peter S. Du Ponceau, James Humphreys, Gulian C. Verplanck, John Reddie, John J. Park, Charles P. Cooper, Sutton Sharpe, Abraham HaywardAbstract
During the period 1820-1835, the Anglo-American legal world was set ablaze. Like the reforms taking place in the United Kingdom, Louisiana, South Carolina and New York State, this was about finding the right moment to abolish common law and replace it with codes. Although the two Anglo-American controversies were originally independent of each other, they very soon became intertwined, in particular because the reviews were the cause of a transatlantic confrontation. This was an editorial phenomenon that can be analysed by examining the way in which the art of controversy is organised in the literary and legal reviews, then by following the particular battle between two British reviews founded in 1827 and 1828 respectively, one in defence of common law, the other to eliminate the vague hopes of codification.
