Get a FREE copy of “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States – Abridged Version” by Joseph Story
Joseph Story wrote some of the most important Supreme Court decisions during the early days of the country. This book explores, in detail, his views of the Constitution and it provides a fascinating view of how the Constitution was viewed in the early nineteenth century. Each section is very carefully laid out, and the entire book is constructed to explain the Constitution passage by passage. The logical order and a good index make this book essential for Constitutional scholars and provide ease of use for the casual historian.
From Judge Joseph Story’s introduction:
“From two great sources I have drawn by far the greatest part of my most valuable materials. These are. The Federalist, an incomparable commentary of three of the greatest statesmen of their age and the extraordinary judgments of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall upon constitutional law.
The reader must not expect to find in these pages any novel views, and novel constructions of the Constitution. I have not the ambition to be the author of any new plan of interpreting the theory of the Constitution, or of enlarging or narrowing its powers by ingenious subtleties and learned doubts. My object will be sufficiently attained, if I shall have succeeded in bringing before the reader the true view of its powers maintained by its founders and friends, and confirmed and illustrated by the actual practice of the government.
“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”
