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Justice Joseph Story: A Study Of The Legal Philosophy Of A Jeffersonian Judge, Morgan D. Dowd

Vanderbilt Law Review

Few studies have sought to explicate the legal philosophy of Joseph Story despite his enormous reputation as scholar, Supreme Court justice and professor at the Harvard Law School. Worse still, there has been little critical analysis of nineteenth-century concepts and statements of the law.' The purpose of this essay, then, is to examine the validity of Story's legal theories and to evaluate his work as a major contributor to American public law. As a result of this study,it is hoped that progress can be made toward a greater understanding of the man, the justice, and his philosophy of law.