Excerpt from The Complete Works of Edward Livingston on Criminal Jurisprudence, Vol. 2 of 2

No act of legislation can be or ought to be immutable. Changes are required by the alteration of circumstances, amendments, by the imperfection of all human institutions, but laws ought never to be changed without great deliberation, and a due consideration as well of the reasons on which they were founded, as of the circumstances under which they were enacted. It is therefore proper, in the formation of new laws, to state clearly the motives for making them, and the principles by which the framers were governed in their enactment Without a knowledge of these, future legislatures cannot perform the task of amendment, and there can be neither consistency in legislation, nor uniformity in the interpretation of laws.

For these reasons, the general assembly of the state of Louisiana declare that their objects in establishing the following code, are -

To remove doubts relative to the authority of any parts of the penal law of the different nations by which this state, before its independence, was governed.

To embody into one law, and to arrange into system, such of the various prohibitions enacted by different statutes as are proper to be retained in the penal code.

To include in the class of offences, acts injurious to the state and its inhabitants, which are not now forbidden by law.

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