It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

1 1846 printing Vol. He graduated from Harvard in 1798 second in his class behind William Ellery Channing; he noted that his graduation was with "many bitter tears". The Constitutional Class Book: Being a Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (1834)--Story publiJoseph Storyd an expanded edition entitled A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States in 1840.

Dominating the field in the 19th century this work is a cornerstone of early American jurisprudence. S. Kent Newmyer presents Story as a "Statesman of the Old Republic" who tried to be above democratic politics and to shape the law in accordance with the republicanism of Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall and the New England Whigs of the 1820s and '30s including Daniel Webster.