Story, Joseph

Story, Joseph (1779–1845), justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.Born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Joseph Story graduated from Harvard in 1798, read law with various jurists, and entered the bar in 1801. A Jeffersonian Republican, he served in the Massachusetts legislature and a term in Congress. Story was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1811 by President James Madison, after three other individuals had declined. A close ally of Chief Justice John Marshall, Story became a strong advocate of federal jurisdiction, economic nationalism, and the role of federal law in protecting property rights and the sanctity of contract. His dissent in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) invoked the contract clause of the Constitution in a failed attempt to sustain an implicitly conferred monopoly in a charter the Massachusetts legislature had given the Charles River Bridge Company. The federal government, Story argued, should protect investors in such projects from politicians' whims—in this case the Massachusetts legislators who had authorized a new bridge to compete with the Charles River Bridge.

Story's most important nationalist decisions were Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1841). In the former, he spoke for the Court in ruling constitutional the clause in the Judiciary Act of 1789 allowing the Supreme Court to review state judicial interpretations of the federal Constitution. In Prigg, Story found that state personal‐liberty laws guaranteeing escaped slaves their freedom violated the Constitution's pledge that the national government would assist in returning escaped slaves. Faced with denunciations by abolitionists, Story resigned. He hoped to return to scholarly writing and teaching, but died before he could do so.
See also Antislavery; Federalism; Fugitive Slave Act; Jurisprudence; Legal Profession.

Bibliography

R. Kent Newmyer , Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: Statesman of the Old Republic, 1985.

Kermit L. Hall