INTRODUCTION. '^9 



property of the bar of the state, such as Samuel Jones, Thomas J. Oakley, Mar- 

 tin Van Buren, John Duer and John C. Spencer. 



Chancellor Kent retired from the arduous and honorable duties of the court 

 of chancery, unwearied by judicial labors and unimpaired by age, although he 

 had reached the climacteric at which the constitution declares an incumbent 

 disqualified. He then employed himself in reducing to a system the confused 

 mass of American jurisprudence, as it was found in the reports of the United 

 States tribunals, and of the courts of more than twenty of the states. This 

 great work he accomplished so successfully, that his commentaries have super- 

 seded, as an elementary book, all other compilations, and is received with the 

 respect due to authority throughout the union. Our law libraries are chiefly 

 made up of English works, reprinted with notes of American decisions and statutes. 

 There have been few original publications on elementary law, and the list of 

 writers in the legal profession is by no means extensive. We have a profound 

 and philosophical essay on the law of contracts by Gulian C. Verplanck, who 

 has also distinguished himself by many elaborate opinions, delivered while he was 

 a senator, in the court of errors; a treatise on the constitution of the United 

 States, by Alfred Conkling ; an essay on new trials, and a treatise on the prac- 

 tice of the supreme court, by David Graham junior ; a manual of law for the 

 use of business men, by Amos Dean ; " The office and duties of masters in chan- 

 cery," and a treatise on the practice in chancery, by Murray Hoffman ; Blake's 

 chancery practice; Dunlap's practice; and a work on the same subject, by Paris 

 & Duer. 



Leaving this imperfect notice of the bar and its learning, and returning to the 

 subject of political science, we may mention "A sketch of the finances of the 

 United States, by Albert Gallatin," published in 1796, which, on account of the 

 general views it contains in respect to revenue and taxation, deserves to be classed 

 among discussions in the science of poUtical economy. The sketch referred to 

 contained a very comprehensive and lucid view of the financial system of the 

 United States, as put in operation after the organization of the government under 



Intr. 10 



