"I have finished reading this great work Commentaries on the
Constitution of the United States, and wish it could be read by every
statesman, and every would-be statesman in the United States. It is a
comprehensive and an accurate commentary on our Constitution, formed in
the spirit of the original text." --Chief Justice John Marshall (1833)
Commentaries 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--Abridged by the Author
for the Use of Colleges and High Schools was an abridgment by Supreme
Court Justice Joseph Story of his own previously published three-volume
work of 1833. Because this abridgment was required reading at many
colleges, it became more popular than the original landmark of early
American jurisprudence, which is still an important source about the
forming of the American republic and about Story's defense of the power
of the national government and economic liberty.