"It is now about thirty-six years since you began your judicial career on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. In the intervening period between that time and the present, you have successively occupied the offices of Chief Justice and Chancellor of the same State. I speak but the common voice of the profession and the public when I say that in each of these stations you have brought to its duties a maturity of judgment, a depth of learning, a fidelity of purpose, and an enthusiasm for justice, which have laid the solid foundations of an imperishable fame. In the full vigor of your intellectual powers, you left the bench only to engage in a new task, which of itself seemed to demand by its extent and magnitude a whole life of strenuous diligence. That task has been accomplished. The Commentaries on American Law have already acquired the reputation of a juridical classic, and have placed their author in the first rank of the benefactors of the profession. You have done for America what Mr. Justice Blackstone in his invaluable Commentaries has done for England. You have embodied the principles of our law in pages as attractive by the persuasive elegance of their style as they are instructive by the fulness and accuracy of their learning."^[110]

A fitting tribute to a man who helped the fledgling justice system of New York and the United States become the guardian of freedom that it is today.

Footnote 109: Id. at 671.

Footnote 110: Coxe, supra note 29, at 564 (quoting Joseph Story).