1840 Digest of the Reported Decisions Superior Court Territory of Orleans Scarce

Description

"The following work was commenced by the first of the undersigned, for his personal convenience...As it was found to be of daily utility, the original plan was enlarged...having been likewise carefully digested by the joint labor of both the undersigned, the whole was brought together, and forms the work which we now submit to the indulgence of the profession."
DIGEST
OF THE
REPORTED DECISIONS
OF THE
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE LATE TERRITORY OF ORLEANS,
AND OF THE
SUPREME COURT
OF THE
State of Louisiana.
ORIGINALLY COMPILED BY
J. P. BENJAMIN AND T. SLIDELL, ATTORNEYS AT LAW,
AND NOW REVISED BY
THOMAS SLIDELL.  New Orleans:
E. JOHNS & CO. STATIONERS' HALL,
1840. 2nd Edition. Not a New Orleans imprint, as noted on verso of title page:
PRINTED BY T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PHILADELPHIA.
Thick octavo. xii, 758 pages, index. Scarce.
JUMONVILLE 1121 - OCLC 869514637
Contemporary leather binding, spine in five compartments, red leather title label lettered in gilt. Exhibits edgewear, rubbing; old leather scuffed and split at joints, causing slight lean - would have repaired. Interior with old dampstains at head of first several leaves - various degrees of occasional light foxing throughout - acceptable condition overall.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 This revised and expanded second edition incorporates decisions handed down since 1834, nearly double the size of the first edition which came off the press of New Orleans printer John F. Carter.  The first American case reports date only to the early national period, as law and practice in the new republic increasingly diverged from that of Great Britain. In Louisiana, case reporting commenced in 1811, and over the ensuing nine decades, a succession of determined men pioneered collecting and publishing decisions of the Superior Court for the Territory of Orleans and the Supreme Court of Louisiana that shaped law in the Bayou State.
[THE CONFEDERATE JURIST:
The Legal Life of Judah P. Benjamin
]
In their rendering of the present work, Judah P. Benjamin and Thomas Slidell were digesters, that is to say, they compressed cases down to the essentials. More importantly, they eschewed chronological arrangement in favor of one that arrayed subject matter by title in alphabetical order. A table of contents and a table of cases served as added finding aids. Their method, in their own words, was
presentation of a:
"S
tatement of every point or principle decided in every case which is , of course, the most essential in a work of this nature; and we believe, that in this respect, the errors or omissions, if any, are very limited in number. The principle difficulties consist in the arrangement or subdivision of the different titles, and occasionally in determining under what title a particular decision should be embraced. We have endeavored to obviate the latter of these difficulties, by repeating such decisions under each title to which they could be considered as applicable; but in relation to the former, we are only able to say, that we have used every effort to make a Digest a convenient work of reference for the profession."
According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
"It treated comprehensively for the first time Louisiana's uniquely cosmopolitan and complex legal system, derived from Roman, Spanish, French, and English sources."