CODE OF VIRGINIA: WITH THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES; AND THE CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA. PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA, APPROVED MAY 887 Copyright, 1888, FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, BY HENRY W. FLOURNOY, SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH. Rec. Sest. 7, 1894 PREFACE. An account of the former revisions of the laws of this state will be found in the preface to the Code of 1849. It is therefore unnecessary to repeat it here. Since 1849, there has been no such revision, except that provided for by the act of March 18, 1884. Two volumes, prepared by Col. George Wythe Munford, designated respectively as the "Second" and "Third" Editions of the Code of Virginia, were published, by authority of the General Assembly, the one in the year 1860, and the other in the year 1873. These were compilations merely, not revisions. Col. Munford had no authority to revise, and the General Assembly did not revise what he had done, but merely ordered the books prepared by him to be published. Therefore, the Code of 1849, adopted in all its parts, as a whole, on the 16th day of August, 1849,* continued to be the Code of Virginia, except in so far as it was altered by constitutions and statutes of later date. The statute law of the state, after great lapse of time without revision, being in much confusion, the General Assembly, on the 18th day of March, 1884,† enacted that "three persons, to be elected by a joint resolution of the General Assembly, shall revise and digest the Code of this commonwealth. It shall be their duty to collate and revise all the general statutes, civil and criminal, of this commonwealth, which may be in force at the time of the completion of their work. In performing this duty, they shall suggest such contradictions, omissions, or imperfections, as they may discover in the statutes, and the mode in which the same may be reconciled, supplied, or amended without producing a radical change in the present system of the statute laws of this state; they shall arrange all the statutes under appropriate titles and chapters, and divide them into sections, numbering them consecutively, from one to the end, having regard to the division into titles and chapters; also make such notes and explanations and marginal references, as may be helpful to a clear understanding of the statutes; and they shall, in all respects, execute and complete the revision as hereby directed, in such manner as, in their opinion, will harmonize the general statutes, and make the code of statute laws, as existing at the close of this work, as complete as possible." This act is very much the same as that under which the revision of 1849 was made,‡ except that it prohibits, in terms, "any radical change in the present system of the statute laws of the state" and requires the sections to be numbered consecutively from one to the end. After the passage of this act, and on the day of its passage, the General Assembly adopted the following joint resolution ||: "That E. C. Burks, W. R. Staples, and John W. Riely, be and they are hereby chosen to be the persons designated to perform the duties provided for in an act approved March 18, 1884, entitled 'an act to revise and digest the Code and statutes of Virginia.'" *Acts 1849-50, pp. 256-7. +Acts 1883-4, pp. 702, 703, ch. 523, 1. Acts 1845-6, pp. 26, 27, ch. 34. Senate Journal 1883-4, p. 661; House Journal 1883-4, p. 791. |