10. The Importance of the Civil Law in The present practical importance of the Civil Law to us consists in the fact that about one-seventh part of the present popula tion of the United States and its dependencies — or, to put it in figures, more than 13,000,000 of our population— live under the Civil Law, and are governed in their personal and prop erty rights by some form of it. Thus Louisi ana, with a population of 1,700,000, Porto Rico, with a population of 1,150,000, the Hawaiian Islands, with a population of 190,000, the Phil ippine Islands, with a population of 8,000,000, and Cuba (if indeed it may be included), with a population of 2,050.000, are governed by the Civil Law. Not only. therefore, must our judges and lawyers acquire familiarity with it and fa cility in working in it, hut our commercial and trading classes are finding it constantly of more and more consequence to them in their busi ness. Not only is much of our law derived from it, but many millions of our people live and must continue to live under it. It is a curi ous fact that the Custom of Paris was in force in Michigan and Wisconsin down to the year 1810, when it was formally abolished, in Michi gan at least, by the legislature of that State. (18 Wis. 158; 8 Mich. 25). All the French colonies established in the 17th and early part of the 18th century in North America were governed by the Custom of Paris, which still remains in Quebec the basis of the codified law of that province. By a royal ordinance the laws, edicts and ordinances of France and the Custom of Paris were extended to Louisiana, and that system of law thus introduced prevailed there until 1763, when France ceded the coun try to Spain. That introduced the Spanish law into Louisiana, which was, however, only another form of the Civil Law. In 1803 a Civil Code was adopted by the Territory of Orleans based to a considerable extent on the Code Napoleon, and, as revised in 1825 and subsequently, constitutes the present Louisiana Code. We probably owe to the study of Black stone's Commentaries much of the unreason ing prejudice which has hitherto existed to some extent in this country against the study of the Civil Law. Blackstone began to be read
by law students in America about 140 years ago, and from then to now has been for the most part the initial textbook for all lawyers and law schools. He writes bitterly in his first lecture about the Civil Law. But it is mani fest that he wrote without knowledge and un der the influence of a set of political preju dices and with a bias and prepossession with which we in the United States may well have little sympathy. Abstractly, there is no more reason why Americans should entertain a prej udice against the Civil Law than against the law of gravitation, and there are cogent rea sons, practical as well as scientific, why we should—now at least when it has become a matter of real personal concern to so consider able a part of our people—give serious at tention to modern Civil Law.
Ferriere, (Coiltume de Paris' ; Ferriere, (History of the Roman Law' ; Flach, (Etudes critiques sur l'histoire du droit romain au moyen age' ; Bentham, Complete Works, Vol. I, of the Civil Code' ; Mackenzie, (Roman Law' ; Hunter, (Roman Law, in the Order of a Code' ; Hunter, 'in troduction to Roman Law' ; Hadley, (Roman Law' ; Baudry-Lacantinerie, droit civil' ; Viollet, (Histoire du droit civil francais' ; Esmein, 'Coors elementaire d'histoire du droit francais' ; Muirhead, (Historical Intro duction to the Private Law of Rome' ; Bryce, 'Studies in History and Jurisprudence' ; Howe, (Roman and Civil Law in America,' 16 Har vard Law Review, 342, also 1 Southern Law Review, 96; Hornblower, (Address New York State Bar Association 1902' • Beach, (French Law and the French Judicial System,' 15 Green Bag, 33; Carpentier et Frerejouan du Saint, 'Du droit francais' ; Riviere, 'Codes fran cais et lois usuelles' ; Weiss, (Pandectes fran caises'; Ruben de Couder, (Pandectes chron ologiques.)