CODDINGTON. 107 CODE. Lincolnshire, England; came to Plynioulli Col- ony in 1030 with a coniinission as nia^jistrate, landed at Salem, and was for some time a trader in Boston. He undertook the defense of Ann Hutchinson, and opposed similar persecution in other cases, but without success. In 1038, with eighteen others, he removed to the island of Aquidnek (later Rhode Island), and founded a colony which was to be "judged and guided hy the laws of Christ." Coddington was elected Gov- ernor in 1G40. and held the ollice until tlic Colony was incorporated in the charter with Pnivideuce Plantations in 1647. He went to England in 1649, and two years later obtained a commission to govern Aquidnek and Couanicut for life. His opponents in the Colony, through Tloger Williams and Jolin Clark, succeeded in having this re- voked (1052); but Coddington did not fiiuiUy submit until 1655. He became a Quaker in 1666, and from 1674 until his death was again in office as Governor. He left a w-ork entitled. Demonstration of True Lore unto the Rulers of Massachusetts (1674). Consult "William Cod- dington in Rhode Island Colonial AtTairs," No. 4 of the Rhode Island Historical Tracts (Provi- dence, 1898). CODE (from Lat. caudex or codex, trunk of a tree, tablet for writing). The word code is often loosely employed to describe : ( 1 ) A set of rules of any sort, as when wc speak of the moral code or of the code of honor. (2) Any compilation of legal rules, from a collection of early customs like the Salic law down to the building laws of a modern municipality. As a modern legal term, the «ord code (Fr. code, It. codice, Sp. codigo, Ger. Gesetzbuch] may be defined as an orderly presentation, in statutory form, of some distinct branch or fairly extensive portion of the law. On the Continent of Europe and in Latin America there are regularly in each State: (1) A civil code, setting forth the law of persons, domestic rela- tions, property, obligations, and succession; (2) a commercial code: (3) a penal, or criminal, code; (4) a code of civil procedure: and (5) a code of criminal procedure. Systematic arrange- ments of other and less extensive portions of the law, resembling the English Consolidation Acts, are sometimes termed codes, but more com- monly laws. For European and Latin-Ameri- can civil codes, see paragraph VIII. of the sub- title History, in the article Civil Law. In Great Britain, the statutes of the realm have been revised by eliminating obsolete and repealed enactments (Revised Statutes, 1870, 1885) ; and statutes relating to certain subjects have been brought together in consolidation acts, of which, perhaps, the most imiiortant are the statute-law revision and civil-iiroccdure acts of 1881 and 1883: but the only important acts in which the statutory and common-law rules re- lating to a given subject have been combined are: The Bills of Exchange Act (1SS2): the Partnership Act (1890); and the Sale-of-Goods Act (1893). In British India codification has been carried much further. Not only have the general and provincial statutes been revised, but there are codes of civil and criminal procedure (1859 and 1861, new codes 1882 and 1898), a penal code (1860), and acts nearly equivalent to codes governing contracts (1872), and trans- fers of property, easements, and trusts (1882). Ceylon and the Straits Settlements have ado|)ted Vol. v.— 8. or adapted some of the Indian codes. Canads, New South Wales. Victoria, New Zealand, and Queensland have criminal codes. In the L'nited Stales the general or public statutes of the Federal Government, and those of a great majority of the States, are periodically revised, and these revisions are sometimes called codes. When (as is usually the case) the re- vision is passed by the Legislature, it replaces the original acts. The Revised Statutes are grouped according to the subjects with which they deal, and the arrangement of subjects is sometimes systematic, but more often alphabeti- cal. Under either arrangement these compila- tions ordinarily contain more or less ccmiplete codes of criminal law and procedure, and some- times codes of civil procedure. Nearly one- fourth of the States have separate codes of pro- cedure; a small number have separate penal codes. The Revised Statutes rarely include any- thing approaching a complete civil code, and only four States (California, Louisiana, North Dakota, and South Dakota) have separate codes of this character: for in most of the States the substantive private law, especially the law of personal property and of contracts, is still in the main common law. In Louisiana, where the common law has never obtained, there has been a civil code since 1808; but no State has j'et passed a civil code which completely supersedes the conmion law. The first attempt to combine common and statutory law in a civil code was made in Georgia in 1860, in connection with a general revision of the law; but this code was not meant to be a comjilete enactment of the common law. Iowa, Ohio, and Texas have gone further than most of the other States in enact- ing common-law rules, but not so far as Geor- gia,. The nearest approach to a complete en.act- ment of the common law is found in a civil code which was drafted in New York, but which was not adopted in that State. It was adopted in the Territory of Dakota, 1865, and in California. 1872; and many of its provisions have passed into the laws of ^Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. This code, although frequently revised, has not completely sujierseded the common law. Consult Estate of Apiile, 60 Cal. 432. The question of codification, in England and in the United States, is practically a question of the advisability of transforming eomnum law- into statutory law. The conditions are different from those which have prevailed on the Conti- nent of Europe. There the earlier modern codi- fications were provincial; and they were made partly to protect existing customs against the Ro- manizing tendencies of the courts, and partly to substitute, for the Roman laws, civil and canon laws written in the vernacular. The great codes now in force in France, Italy, and Germany were constructed to replace the earlier local provincial and State codes and to establisli uniform nation- al law. The codification movement in Switzerland has the same purpose ; it pro])oses to substitute federal law for cantonal law. (Sec Civil Law, nistorii, VIII.) In England the existing com- mon law is national, and codification by act of Parliament will simply change its form and the mode of its future development. In the LTnited States, also, the common law is national; but inasmuch as the United States Congress cannot codify the common law for the States, codifica- tion is possible only in the form of State codes;
