JOSEPH

See also:

• STORY, JOHN (c. 1510-1571)
• JOSEPH STORY (1779-1845)
• STORY, ROBERT HERBERT (1835-1907)
• STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE (1819—1895)

STORY (1779-1845)  , American jurist, was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts, on the 18th of September 1779 . He graduated at Harvard in 1798, was admitted to the bar at Salem, Mass., in 1801, and soon attained eminence in his profession . He was a member of the Democratic party, and served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1805-18o8, and in 1810-1812 for two terms as speaker, and was a representative in Congress from December 1808 to March 18o9 . In November 1811, at the age of thirty-two, he became, by President Madison's appointment, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court . This position he retained. until his death . Here he found his true sphere of work . The traditions of the American people, their strong prejudice for the local supremacy of the states and against a centralized government, had yielded reluctantly to the establishment of the Federal legislative and executive in 1789 . The Federal judiciary had been organized at the same time, but had never grasped the full measure of its powers . Soon after Story's appointment the Supreme Court began to bring out into plain view the powers which the constitution had given it over state courts and state legislation . The leading place in this work belongs to Chief Justice John Marshall, but Story has a very large share in that remarkable series of decisions and opinions, from 1812 until 1832, by which the work was accomplished . In addition to this he built up the department of admiralty law in the United States courts; he devoted much attention to equity jurisprudence, and rendered invaluable services to the department of patent law . In 1819 he attracted much attention by his vigorous charges to grand juries, denouncing the slave trade, and in 182o he was a prominent member of the Massachusetts Convention called to revise the state constitution .

In 1829 he became the first Dane

Professor of Law at Harvard University, and continued until his death to hold this position, meeting with remarkable success as a teacher and winning the affection of his students, whom he imbued with much of his own enthusiasm . He died at Cambridge, Mass., on the loth of September 1845 . His industry was unremitting, and, besides attending to his duties as an associate justice and a professor of law, he wrote many reviews and magazine articles, delivered various orations on public occasions, and published a large number of works on legal subjects, which won high praise on both sides of the Atlantic . Among his publications are: Commentaries on the Law of Bailments (1832) ; Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (3 vols., 1833), a work of profound learning which is still the standard treatise on the subject; Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws (1834), by many regarded as his ablest work; Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence (2 vols., 1835—1836) ; Equity Pleadings (1838) ; Law of Agency (1839) ; Law of Partnership (1841); Law of Bills of Exchange (1843); and Law of Promissory Notes (1845) . He also edited several standard legal works . His Supreme Court decisions may be found in Cranch's, Wheaton's and Peters's Reports, his Circuit Courts decisions in Mason's, Sumner's and Story's Reports . His Miscellaneous Writings, first published in 1835, appeared in an enlarged edition (2 vols. in 1851) . See The Lifi and Letters of Joseph Story (2 vols., Boston and London, 1851), by his son, W . W . Story .