Marriages, Divorces, Wills, Successions, and Judgments. BY JOSEPH STORY, LL.D., DANE PROFESSOR OF LAW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. "Il régnera donc toujours entre les nations une contrariété perpétuelle de loix; peutêtre régnera-t-elle SECOND EDITION. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND GREATLY ENLARGED. BODI LONDON: REPRINTED UNDER THE DIRECTION AND SANCTION OF THE LEARNED AUTHOR, Law Lookseller to His late Majesty ; T. CLARK, EDINBURGH; AND A. MILLIKEN, DUBLIN. MDCCCXLI. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE former edition of this Work being exhausted, I have availed myself, in the preparation of the present edition, of the opportunity of revising, correcting, and amending the text and notes throughout, and of adding such new materials, as have been furnished by the recent authorities at the common law, as well as by more diligent researches into foreign jurisprudence. For the opinions of some foreign jurists, I was obliged, in the former edition, (as the reader was informed in the notes,) to rely upon the citations from their works, which I found in other authors, not having access to the originals. With one or two unimportant exceptions, the originals of these foreign jurists are now in my possession, and have been consulted by me; so that I have been enabled to correct some errors in those citations, and also to furnish complete and perfect statements of their respective opinions. Perhaps it may not be useless here to add, that in every case, where any authority for any position is cited at the bottom of the page, the reader may rest assured, that the very citation has been perused and diligently compared by me with the original. more As the works of foreign jurists, especially of those who lived before the middle of the eighteenth century, are rarely to be found in American Libraries, either public or private, and are becoming daily more scarce and difficult to be purchased abroad, I have made my extracts therefrom more copious, and often cited the words of the original, so that the reader might be spared the necessity of farther researches into the originals, and also might possess the means of ascertaining the accuracy of the expositions in the text. These explanations may account for the fact, that the Work, unexpectedly to myself, has swelled to double its former size; a fact, which (as the pages and sections of the former edition are still preserved) might not readily occur to those, who are not accustomed to examine the signatures at the bottom of the different sheets*. Since the publication of the former edition, Mr. Burge has published his very able and comprehensive Commentaries on Colonial and Foreign Law, mainly as applicable to the colonies of Great Britain, in which he has devoted a number of chapters to the consideration of many of the topics embraced in the present Work. The plan of his Work, however, essentially differs from my own in its leading objects. It exhibits great learning and research; and as its merits are not as yet generally known to the Profession on this side of the Atlantic, I have made many references to it, and occasional quotations from it, with the view of enabling the Profession to obtain many more illustrations of the doctrines than my own brief text would suggest, and also fully to appreciate his learned labors. Monsieur Folix, also, the accomplished Editor of the Revue Etrangere et Française, (a * This passage applies only to the American Edition. highly useful and meritorious periodical, published at Paris), has, in the volume of the year 1840, discussed, in a series of articles, many topics of the Conflict of Laws, and given the opinions of the leading foreign jurists on the subject. I have gladly referred to his very interesting and lucid expositions, that my own countrymen may more readily understand their great value and importance. It is not probable, that, in the course of my own life, this Work will undergo any essential change from its present form. Other avocations and other pressing duties, judicial as well as professorial, will necessarily occupy all the time and attention, which I may hereafter be permitted to command for any juridical pursuits. I must, therefore, dismiss these Commentaries to the indulgent consideration of the reader, not as a work, which has surveyed the whole subject, or exhausted the materials; but as an essay towards opening the leading doctrines and inquiries belonging to private international jurisprudence, which the genius, and learning, and labors of more gifted minds may hereafter mould, and polish, and expand into an enduring system of public law. My own wishes will be fully satisfied, if (to use the language of my Lord Coke, in the close of his first Institute) any thing shall be found herein, which "may either open some windows of the law, to let in more light to the student, by diligent search to see the secrets of the law, or to move him to doubt, and withal to enable him to inquire, and learn of the sages, what the law, together with the true reason thereof, in these cases is." January, 1841. JOSEPH STORY. |