American Minute with Bill Federer
What Kind of Justice would James Madison appoint to the Supreme Court?
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His
father
was a
Boston Tea Party "Indian."
He graduated second in his class from
Harvard.
He was a
U.S. Representative,
then was elected
Massachusetts Speaker of the House.
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At age 32, he was the youngest
Justice
on the U.S. Supreme Court,
appointed by President James Madison.
His name was
Joseph Story,
and he died SEPTEMBER 10, 1845.
Justice Joseph Story
served on the
Supreme Court
for
34 years.
His appointment to the Supreme Court by
Madison
is significant, as
Madison
was instrumental in the writing the
U.S. Constitution
and
Bill of Rights.
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Justice Joseph Story helped establish the
illegality of the slave trade
in the
Amistad
case, 1841.
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When the
Supreme Court r
uled against the
Democrat's Indian Removal Act
(Worcester v. Georgia,
1832),
Justice Joseph Story
wrote March 4, 1832:
"Thanks be to God, the Court can wash their hands clean of the iniquity of oppressing the Indians and disregarding their rights."
Unfortunately, the
Democrat Presidents Andrew Jackson
and
Martin Van Buren
ignored the Court's decision and sent in Federal Government troops to remove the Indians.
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In early United States history, there were few "law schools," as the typical way to become a lawyer was to
apprentice
with a
practicing lawyer.
Joseph Story
helped establish the
Law School
at
Harvard,
the nation's
oldest continuously operating law school,
stating in a speech there in 1829:
"There never has been a period of history, in which the
Common Law
did not recognize
Christianity
as lying at its
foundation."
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In 1833,
Joseph Story
received a pamphlet titled
"The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States,"
written by
Rev. Jasper Adams,
President of the College of Charleston, South Carolina.
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In it,
Jasper Adams
wrote:
"Did the people of these States intend to renounce all connection with the
Christian religion?
Or did they only intend to disclaim all preference of one sect of
Christians
over another, as far as civil government was concerned; while they still retained the
Christian religion
as the foundation of all their social, civil and political institutions? ..."
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Jasper Adams
continued:
“In our ... Legislative Assemblies,
daily Christian worship
has been customarily observed. All business proceedings in our Legislative halls and Courts of justice have been suspended by universal consent on
Sunday.
Christian Ministers
have customarily been employed to perform stated religious services in the Army and Navy of the United States ... In administering oaths,
the Bible,
the standard of
Christian
truth is used, to give additional weight and solemnity to the transaction ...
No nation on earth,
is more dependent than our own, for its welfare, on the preservation and general belief and
influence of Christianity."
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After reading Jasper Adams' pamphlet,
Joseph Story
wrote:
"I have read it with uncommon satisfaction. I think its tone and spirit excellent.
My own private judgment has long been (and every day's experience more and more confirms me in it) that
government can not long exist without an alliance with religion;
and that
Christianity is indispensable
to the true interests and
solid foundations of free government."
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In
Vidal v. Girard's Executors,
1844,
Justice Joseph Story
wrote:
"Christianity ...
is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public ...
It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider the establishment of a school or college, for the propagation of ... Deism, or any other form of infidelity.
Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a
Christian country ..."
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Justice Story
continued:
"Why may not laymen instruct in the
general principles of Christianity
as well as ecclesiastics ...
We cannot overlook the blessings, which such laymen by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may, nay must, impart to their youthful pupils.
Why may not
the Bible,
and especially the
New Testament,
without note or comment, be read and taught as a
Divine Revelation
... its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? ..."
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Story
added:
"What is there to prevent a work, not sectarian, upon the
general evidences of Christianity,
from being read and taught in the college by lay teachers?
It may well be asked, what is there in all this, which is positively enjoined, inconsistent with the
spirit or truths of the religion of Christ?
Are not these truths all taught by
Christianity,
although it teaches much more?
Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the
New Testament?"
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Justice Joseph Story's
view on religion is all the more significant when one considers he was
appointed to James Madison
- the "Chief Architect of the Constitution," who introduced the First Amendment in the first session of Congress.
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Joseph Story
wrote in
Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States,
1840:
"We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to
Christianity
(which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution) ...
At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the
universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State
so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship.
An
attempt to level all religions,
and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not
universal indignation ..."
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Story
added:
"
But the duty of supporting religion
, and especially the
Christian religion, is very different from the right to force the consciences of other men
or to punish them for worshiping God in the manner which they believe their accountability to Him requires ...
The
rights of conscience
are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are
given by God,
and cannot be encroached upon by human authority without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural as well as of revealed religion ..."
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Justice Story
continued:
"The real object of the First Amendment
was not to countenance (approve), much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to
exclude all rivalry among Christian sects
and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government."
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In C
ommentaries on the Constitution,
1833,
Justice Joseph Story
commented on the reason the Federal Government had no jurisdiction over religion was because
religion was under each individual State's jurisdiction:
"In some of the States,
Episcopalians
constituted the predominant sect; in other,
Presbyterians;
in others,
Congregationalists;
in others,
Quakers;
and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects.
It was impossible that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment.
The only security was in the abolishing the power ...
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... But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion ...
Thus,
the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the State governments,
to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice and
the State constitutions."
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Justice Potter Stewart
reiterated this
(Abington Township v. Schempp,
dissent, 1963):
"As a matter of history, the
First Amendment
was adopted solely as a
limitation upon the newly created National Government ...
The
Establishment Clause
was primarily an attempt to insure that
Congress
not only would
be powerless
to establish a national church, but would also be
unable to interfere with existing state establishments."
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Like a race track with 13 lanes, each State expanded religious freedom at its own speed.
Some State expanded it at faster pace, and other States had "Blue Laws" where all businesses were closed on Sundays, but it was up to the people in each State to decide.
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This is similar to today, where:
- Some States have Smoking Bans; others not;
- Some allow Underage Drinking; others not;
- Some allow Legalized Marijuana; others not;
- Some allow Gambling & Prostitution; others not.
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Regarding the
Second Amendment, Justice Joseph Story
wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (3:§§ 1890--91):
"The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted ...
The militia
is the natural
defense
of a free country
against
sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic
usurpations of power by rulers.
It is against sound policy for a free people to keep ... standing armies in time of peace ... from ... the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.
The
right of the citizens to keep and bear arms
has justly been considered, as
the palladium (defense) of the liberties of a republic;
since it offers a strong moral
check
against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers;
and will ...
enable the people to resist
and triumph over them ..."
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Story
concluded with a
warning
not to become complacent regarding citizens' right to be armed:
"And yet ... it cannot be disguised, that among
the American people there is a growing indifference
to any system of militia discipline ... that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus
gradually undermine
all the protection
intended by this clause of our
national bill of rights."
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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