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Show ¦82- well be "I.O U.", so long as the execution.-, delivery and transfer of it entail definitely understood consequences, uniform throughout the empire of exchange. As C» J* WiIles s in a leading case 132 years ago (Lockyer v. Offley, I,T.R, 259), says: "In all commercial transactionst the great object is certainty. It will therefore be necessary for the court to lay down some rule* and it is of more consequence that the rule should be certain than whether it is es- tablished one way or the other*" ¦ Although conceding the competence of state courts, the United States courts have not followed them* but have searched the judicial archives of the .world for uniform rules* What I have called residual variances have deflected the unifying trend* not wit list an ding the common usage, the common demand for uniformity, the attitude of the federal judiciary, These vari- ances often made commercial dealings the sport of chance. They ensnared and hampered business intercourse, the more it grew in volume and com- plexity. In the later 70's lawyers and judges generally took home the prophetic words of Mr. Duane, uttered a half-century before: "our true course is * * * by degrees, to make our laws more uniform and natural * *¦* We only want a general efficient plan, supported with energy and national feeling." Partly to devise such a plan* aid to apply it in the unification of law, the American Bar Association was founded in I3?8. Happily., the New South, -vivified by a new commerce: was in the van of the movement. In 1882 a Tennesses attorneys before the Bar Association of that states pro- posed a substantial merger of the federal and state systems* This was significant, if not practical. In 1886, the first practical proposition came with a circular from the Alabama Bar Association to like Associations in the other states, calling for conference upon the subject. Meantime, in 1882, Great Britain, followed by her forty self-govern- ing colonies* furnished a working model and a mild reproach to the Ameri- can state sisterhood by adopting Judge Chalmers* pioneer Bills of Exchange Act. • In 1891> under the hegemony of the great commercial state of New York commissioners from six states actually met to shape and recommend uniform. legisla-tion. Ambitious in their hopes, but modest in their first proposals they sought to abolish days of grace and some other anachronisms. But they clearly saw and declared the "most urgent need" of uniform rules af- fecting directly the business common and co-extensive with the whole country. They remarked the perplexity, uncertainty end confusion hindering trade, occasioning insecurity of contract, together with needless litigation and miscarriages of justice. In 1890^ Mr. Henry Tompkins, of Montgomery, Ala- bama, in 1892, Mr. Wm. L. Snyder, and next year Hr. John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia, recurred to the charmed subject. "Though we be distinct as the billows," said Mr. Tucker, "let us be one- as the sea. We cannot en- force, but may well hope to induce uniformity in many important matters*" But how to induce it was the difficulty* |
