"My object will be", Story wrote, "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.

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.

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 masterly reasoning of the Chief Justice has followed them out to their ultimate results and boundaries with a precision and clearness approaching, as near as may be, to mathematical demonstration.

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 subtitlies and learned doubts.

Chapter 45 contains Story's concluding remarks: Many reflections naturally crowd upon the mind at such a moment,—many grateful recollections of the past, and many anxious thoughts of the future.

[6]Justice Story added an appendix to the second volume of the 1833 edition where he quotes President Andrew Jackson's December 10, 1832, Proclamation which deals with South Carolina's Nullification Laws.

To the fourth edition, published in 1873 by Little, Brown & Co., Thomas M. Cooley added three chapters dealing with the emancipation of the slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment and impartial suffrage.

In correspondence Chancellor James Kent wrote to Story on June 19, 1833: "I have just now risen from the completion of that duty, and I owe it to you and to myself to say, that I have been delighted and instructed from the beginning to the end of the work.

Robert von Mohl, of the University of Tübingen, speaking of it in the Kritische Zeitschrift, said: "We have in this work, as perfect and excellent a Commentary on the North American Public Law, as can be produced by deep and profound reflection, acute logic, extensive knowledge of the national condition and writings, and just political views.

Professor Story, by his able and diligent labors, has, without doubt, done a great service, not only to his countrymen, but also, and in a still higher degree, to the European publicists, among whom his name will receive an honorable fame, as readily awarded as it will be enduring!

"[citation needed] Simon Greenleaf said: "This great work, ... admirable alike for its depth of research, its spirited illustrations, and its treasures of political wisdom, has accomplished all in this department which the friends of constitutional law and liberty could desire!

[11] Thomas M. Cooley, in his prefatory essay to his edition of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, wrote in 1871 "upon the subject of the federal constitution, no work yet supersedes the elaborate treatise of Mr. Justice Story; though if it were re-written in view of recent events and authorities, it might be made much more valuable, and be largely increased in interest to those who shall hereafter read it.