The First Amendment: To Exclude Sectarian Rivalry

American Minute from William J. Federer

The Son of one of the Boston Tea Party "Indians," he graduated from Harvard and eventually became Massachusetts Speaker of the House. At age 32, he was appointed the youngest Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served 34 years and helped establish the illegality of the slave trade in the Amistad case. His name was Joseph Story, and he died SEPTEMBER 10, 1845.

A founder of Harvard Law School, Justice Joseph Story stated in Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 1844: "Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?"

Appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison, the person who introduced the First Amendment, Justice Joseph Story commented on it in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, 1840: "At the time of the adoption...of the Amendment...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State."

Justice Story continued: "The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects."

William J. Federer is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, which is dedicated to researching our American heritage. The American Minute radio feature looks back at events in American history on the dates they occurred, is broadcast daily across the country and read by thousand on the internet.