INTRODUCTION. V3 
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 political 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 
Inrr. 10 
