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 can hold in more reverence that the framers of the Constitution)...

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Probably, 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.

Quote from Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Any 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.

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape.

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Christianity...is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against, to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public...

Quote from Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

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...

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Why may not laymen instruct in the general principle of Christianity as well as ecclesiastics...And we cannot overlook the blessings, which such men by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may, nay, must, impart to their youthful pupils.

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a Divine Revelation in the [school] - its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality inculcated?

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

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?

Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?

Quote from Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by President and founding father James Madison

Temporary delusions, prejudices, excitements, and objects have irresistible influence in mere questions of policy. And the policy of one age may ill suit the wishes or the policy of another. The constitution is not subject to such fluctuations. It is to have a fixed, uniform, permanent construction. It should be, so far at least as human infirmity will allow, not dependent upon the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice

The concluding clause is, that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. This is an affirmance of a great doctrine established by the common law for the protection of private property. It is founded in natural equity, and is laid down by jurists as a principle of universal law.

Indeed, in a free government, almost all other rights would become utterly worthless, if the government possessed an uncontrollable power over the private fortune of every citizen.

One of the fundamental objects of every good government must be the due administration of justice; and how vain it would be-to speak of such an administration, when all property is subject to the will or caprice of the legislature and rulers.

Joseph Story, Commenting on the Constitution (1790)

There will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth.

In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, with the exception of Rhode Island, (if, indeed, that s...tate be an exception,) did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines.

And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty.[1]

Indeed, in a republic, there would seem to be a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion, as the great, basis, on which it must rest for its support and permanence, if it be, what it has ever been deemed by its truest friends to be, the religion of liberty.

– Justice Joseph Story, "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,"