The Story Behind Vidal v. Girard's Executors: Joseph Story, The Philadelphia Bible Riots, and Religious Liberty

Abstract

In 1844, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story decided Vidal v. Girard, one of the Supreme Court's first religion cases with implications for our nation's approach to religious liberty. The case is interesting for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the view of the United States Supreme Court in the nineteenth century regarding an issue that has bedeviled the Court nearly its entire history: The proper role of religion in public schools. In Vidal, Joseph Story decided that religion played a vital role in public education, and upheld the use of the Bible and the teaching of Christian moral principles in a city-run school.

Second, Vidal v. Girard presents an opportunity to study how a Justice's personal religious beliefs and the religious controversies of the day are reflected in Supreme Court opinions. The religious controversy of the day -the debate between Catholics and Protestants over the use of the Bible in public schools-and Justice Story's Unitarian beliefs are thoroughly analyzed in this article. As this article shows, this national debate and Justice Story's religious beliefs inescapably impacted the outcome of Vidal v. Girard.