Joseph Story

Joseph Story (September 18, 1779 – September 10, 1845) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1812 to 1845. He is most remembered for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and United States v. The Amistad, and especially for his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first published in 1833. Dominating the field in the 19th century, this work is a cornerstone of early American jurisprudence. It is the second comprehensive treatise on the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and remains a critical source of historical information about the forming of the American republic and the early struggles to define its law.

Story opposed Jacksonian democracy, saying it was "oppression" of property rights by republican governments when popular majorities began in the 1830s to restrict and erode the property rights of the minority of rich men. R. 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 1830s, including Daniel Webster. Historians generally agree that Story reshaped American law—as much or more than Marshall or anyone else—in a conservative direction that protected property rights.

Story was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father was Dr. Elisha Story, a member of the Sons of Liberty who took part in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Dr. Story moved from Boston to Marblehead during the American Revolutionary War. His first wife, Ruth (née Ruddock) died and Story remarried in November 1778, to Mehitable Pedrick, nineteen, the daughter of a wealthy shipping merchant who lost his fortune during the war. Joseph was the first-born of eleven children of the second marriage. (Story also fathered seven children from his first marriage.)

As a boy, Joseph studied at the Marblehead Academy until the fall of 1794, where he was taught by schoolmaster William Harris, later president of Columbia University. At Marblehead he chastised a fellow schoolmate and Harris responded by beating him in front of the school; his father withdrew him immediately afterward. Story was accepted at Harvard University in January 1795; he joined Adelphi, a student-run literary review, and was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa society. After his college graduation, Story read law under Samuel Sewall and Samuel Putnam and was admitted to the bar in July 1801. Story practiced in Salem. A Democratic-Republican, Story served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1805 to 1807. From 1807 to 1809 he was the state attorney for Essex County, Massachusetts. In 1808, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Jacob Crowninshield. He served a partial term, May 23, 1808, to March 3, 1809. He was not a candidate for a full term, and resumed practicing law. In 1811, Story returned to the state House of Representatives, and was selected to serve as Speaker of the House.

Story's wife, Mary Lynde Fitch Oliver, died in June 1805, shortly after their marriage and two months after the death of his father. In August 1808, he married Sarah Waldo Wetmore, the daughter of Judge William Wetmore of Boston. They had seven children but only two, Mary and William Wetmore Story, survived to adulthood. Their son became a noted poet and sculptor—his bust of his father was mounted in the Harvard Law School Library—and published The Life and Letters of Joseph Story (2 vols., Boston and London, 1851). William Wetmore Story's biography, William Wetmore Story and His Friends, was written by the novelist Henry James.

Longtime Washington journalist Benjamin Perley Poore wrote that, though the entire Supreme Court of that day was known for its joviality, its leading exemplar of good humor was Story, "who used to assert that every man should laugh at least an hour during each day, and who had himself a great fund of humorous anecdotes."

Story was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1810, and a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814. He would later serve as that society's vice-president from 1831 to 1845. In 1844, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

On November 15, 1811, Story was nominated by President James Madison to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, succeeding William Cushing, who had died 14 months earlier. Aged 32 years, 58 days at the time of his nomination, he became (and, as of 2025^[update], remains) the youngest person nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Madison had previously nominated John Quincy Adams to succeed Cushing; Adams was confirmed by the United States Senate, but had declined to serve. On November 18, 1811, Story was confirmed by the Senate, and he was sworn into office on February 3, 1812.