Happy Birthday, Moorfield Storey
Although a little-known figure today, few individuals in the classical
liberal tradition contributed more directly to the advancement of
individual rights than Moorfield Storey. According to his biographer,
William B. Hixson, Jr., his
worldview embodied"pacifism, anti-imperialism, and racial egalitarianism fully as much as it did laissez-faire and moral tone in government."
Storey was born in 1845 in Roxbury, Massachusetts to a family descended from the earliest Puritan settlers. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1866, he was the secretary of Senator Charles Sumner, probably the best known abolitionist in the Congress. His tenure ended in 1869 and coincided with the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. He initially supported the removal of Johnson from office, but soon became disgusted by the corruption and opportunism of politicians on both sides.
Storey went on to have a distinguished law practice in Boston and was elected president of the American Bar Association in 1896. He was an active supporter of Grover Cleveland. As a strong believer in the gold standard, freedom of contract, and property
rights, he could not abide by the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan and supported the National (gold) Democratic third party ticket in 1896.
Storey was a founder and, in 1905, became president of the American Anti-Imperialist League which arose to oppose retention of the territories captured in the Spanish-American War. Late in the campaign of 1900, he seriously pondered running for president on a third party ticket but decided against it because it was impractical. Instead, he
ran a losing, but spirited and high profile, campaign for Congress as an independent anti-imperialist candidate. Other planks in his platform included support for the gold standard and free trade.
Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights not only for blacks but also for American Indians and immigrants (he opposed immigration restriction)."When the white man governs himself that is self-government," he declared,"“but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-
government-that is despotism." In 1910, he was a founder and the first president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Another classical liberal, Oswald Garrison Villard, was disbursing treasurer of
that organization.
Storey played a critical role in several important NAACP victories. Most notably, in 1917, he was lead counsel before the Supreme Court in Buchanan v. Warley. In that case, the Court unanimously overturned a Louisville law that forcibly segregated blacks by city blocks. As David E. Bernstein notes, the Court's opinion reflected the Lochnerian jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract.
Storey led the NAACP until his death in 1929. Unlike Villard, he retained most of his original suspicion of big government until the end.