ABSTRACT
Joseph Story served as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court from 1812 until his death in 1845. Prior to his promotion to the nation's highest court, Story had been both a Massachusetts state representative and a member of the US House of Representatives. Like John Marshall, Justice Story became a leading constitutional nationalist and a conservative in the tradition of Britain's Edmund Burke, who stressed the value of adhering to precedents that embodied a nation's collective wisdom. Justice Story's greatest impact on the development of the law may have been his opinions while he rode circuit. Justice Story's opinion for the Court in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 US 304, was his greatest constitutional opinion. On the controversial issue of slavery, Story's moral opposition to the practice directly conflicted with his profound concern for the protection of private property.
