JUSTICE JOSEPH STORY

Q.: Opponents of separation between religion and government often cite Associate Justice Joseph Story and his Commentaries on the Constitution. Who was he?

A.: Story was born, 1779, in Massachusetts--the last of the states(1833) to prohibit use of state government and tax money for support of religious institutions. He was not even born when the colonists signed the Declaration of Independence. He was eight years old when the Philadelphia constitutional convention ended. He was 10 years old when the religion clauses of the First Amendment were written. He was, obviously, not involved in the creation of the Constitution or the First Amendment. Story graduated from Harvard in 1798. In 1811 President Madison, after receiving rejections from his first three choices, appointed Story to the Supreme Court--over the objection of Thomas Jefferson who correctly considered Story a "psuedo-republican." Story became the Court's foremost proponent of federal jurisdiction over the states. In 1833, Story compiled his Commentaries in an effort to combat the twin evils (in his mind) of democracy and states' rights. Story was raised in a Congregational family, but at Harvard he became a Unitarian. However, unlike the unitarian Thomas Jefferson, who advocated a strict separationist position, Story, regarding religion and government, upheld an accommodationist position still advocated in his day by a minority of Americans--there have always been such Americans. Nevertheless, contemporary revisionists use Story improperly when they assert that his written statements regarding religion and government define the prevailing position of the Founding Fathers and the members of the First Congress.