ABSTRACT
One aspect of the public furor over the Supreme Court's decision striking down the New York Regent's prescribed public school prayer should both bother the consciences and arouse the energies of historians. The Court has always used history; the founding fathers expected it to do so. What should bother the historian is the type of history Black used in evolving a basis for an important constitutional ruling. From its crude beginnings with George Bancroft to its traditional exposition by men such as Homer Hockett and Andrew C. McLaughlin, constitutional history was constrained and confined by a set of rigid assumptions. Because of the peculiar nature of the origin and development of the American constitutional system, there was a strong tendency for its students to be conservative and generally worshipful in their attitudes. The Supreme Courts have traditionally fulfilled the function of construing established statutes and legal language.
