RESOLUTIONS.

RESOLVED by the senate and house of representatives, in general assembly convened, That the general assembly do approve of the plan proposed by Edward Livingston, Esq., in his report, made in pursuance of the act, entitled "an act relative to the criminal laws of this state," and earnestly solicit Mr. Livingston to prosecute this work, according to said report; that two thousand copies of the same, together with the part of the projected code thereto annexed, be printed in pamphlet form; one thousand of which shall be printed in French and one thousand in English, under the direction of the said Edward Livingston, Esq. of which five copies be delivered to each member of the present general assembly, fifty copies to the governor, one copy to each of the judges of the supreme court, the district judges, the judge of the criminal court, the attorneygeneral and district attornies, the parish judges, two hundred copies to the said Edward Livingston, Esq.; and that the balance shall be for the use of the state, of which one half shall be deposited into the hands of the secretary of the senate and clerk of the house of representatives, and the other half in the office of the secretary of the state.

And be it further Resolved, That the governor be requested, and is hereby made his duty to contract

for the printing of said work, and to pay for the same out of the contingent fund.

And be it further Resolved, That a sum of one thousand dollars be paid to Edward Livingston, Esq. on his warrant, out of the treasury of the state, to be on account of the compensation to him allowed, when his work shall be completed.

HAVING been honored by an appointment at the last session, to perform the duties required by an "act relative to the criminal laws of the state," I have thought it necessary to report to the general assembly, the progress that has been made in the work, and the reasons which have prevented its completion. In undertaking those duties, I relied much on the aid which I expected to derive from the other states; for, although none of them has framed a code on so comprehensive a plan as that contemplated by our law, yet most of them have established the penitentiary system, which is intended to form the basis of our legislation on this subject. Before I could avail myself of the advantage which those experiments afforded, it was necessary to know, with precision, their results. This information could only be obtained by collecting the returns and official reports of the different establishments, and inducing men of eminence and abilities to communi

cate their observations on the subject. Knowing also the advantage to be derived from a comparison of the opinions of eminent jurists and statesmen on other leading principles, which must be embodied in the system, I addressed several copies of the annexed circular letter to the governors of each state, with the request, that they might be put into the hands of men, from whom the desired information might be expected: these, as well as a number of similar applications, I did hope, would have procured a body of information useful not only to me in framing the work, but to the legislature in judging of it.

This hope has, however, as yet been but partially realized. I have received returns of the state of the penitentiary only from Massachussets. Governor Wollcott an' Judge Swift of Connecticut, Chancellor Kent of New York, Judge Holman of Ohio, Mr. Rawle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bowen of Rhode Island, Mr. Brice of Maryland, and Colonel Johnson of Kentucky, have communicated to me some useful information; with these exceptions, the gentlemen to whom my letters were addressed, have been too much occupied in their own states to attend to the affairs of ours.

Our minister in England has had the goodness to send to me the reports of the committees of the house of commons, appointed to enquire into the propriety of a revision of their penal laws, documents of great utility, to shew the operation of the law we have partially adopted, in that country from which we have borrowed it.