ABSTRACT
The antipathy to codification has been present from the beginning of the American common law. Blackstone's Commentaries were published in the Colonies in 1771, just before the Revolution. In the absence of a reporter system, the book served as the foundational text of American law. Llewellyn's method is most helpfully examined by close reading. The vast reservoir of individual experience and identity certainly plays a role in legal decision making. The same use may be made of the other critical disciplines that have highlighted weaknesses in our reasoning, including deconstruction, legal feminism, and critical race theory. Socialist countries argued that international sales contracts should not be valid without writing, while representatives from most other countries sought freedom from form requirements. Civilian jurists proposed that specific performance be recognized as the principal remedy for breach of the sales contract, while common lawyers responded that specific remedies must be subsidiary to money damages.
