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ON THE

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:

WITH

A PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
OF THE COLONIES AND STATES BEFORE THE

ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

BY JOSEPH STORY, LL.D.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

FIFTH EDITION,

BY MELVILLE M. BIGELOW, PH.D.

"Magistratibus igitur opus est; sine quorum prudentia ac diligentia esse civitas non potest;
quorumque descriptione omnis Reipublicæ moderatio continetur."

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CICERO, DE LEG., lib. 3, cap. 2

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants."

BURKE.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

1891.
11.

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LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY.

A8984

*

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, by JOSEPH STORY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by WILLIAM W. STORY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by WILLIAM W. STORY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by WILLIAM W. STORY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1891,
BY WILLIAM W. STORY.

University Press :

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAmbridge.

TO THE

HONORABLE JOHN MARSHALL, LL.D.,

SIR,

CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

I ASK the favor of dedicating this work to you. I know not to whom it could with so much propriety be dedicated as to one whose youth was engaged in the arduous enterprises of the Revolution, whose manhood assisted in framing and supporting the national Constitution, and whose maturer years have been devoted to the task of unfolding its powers and illustrating its principles. When, indeed, I look back upon your judicial labors during a period of thirty-two years, it is difficult to suppress astonishment at their extent and variety, and at the exact learning, the profound reasoning, and the solid principles which they everywhere display. Other judges have attained an elevated reputation by similar labors, in a single department of jurisprudence. But in one department (it need scarcely be said that I allude to that of constitutional law), the common consent of your countrymen has admitted you to stand without a rival. Posterity will assuredly confirm, by its deliberate award, what the present age has approved as an act of undisputed justice. Your expositions of constitutional law enjoy a rare and extraordinary authority. They constitute a monument of fame far beyond the ordinary memorials of political and military glory. They are destined to enlighten, instruct, and convince future generations, and can scarcely perish but with the memory of the Constitution itself. They are the victories of a mind accustomed to grapple with difficulties, capable of unfolding the most comprehensive truths with masculine simplicity and severe logic, and prompt to dissipate the illusions of ingenious doubt and subtle argument and impassioned eloquence. They remind us of some mighty river of our own country, which, gathering in its course the contributions of many tributary streams, pours at last its own current into the ocean, deep, clear, and irresistible.

But I confess that I dwell with even more pleasure upon the entirety of a life adorned by consistent principles, and filled up in the discharge

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