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Robert Olender | 2006 Student Essay Prize Winner: A Legacy of Limitation: Thomas M. Cooley, Public Purpose, and the General Welfare | The Michigan Historical Review, 33.1 | The History Cooperative
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Spring, 2007
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2006 Student Essay Prize Winner


A Legacy of Limitation: Thomas M. Cooley, Public Purpose, and the General Welfare

by
Robert Olender
 
Image 1
    Thomas M. Cooley, portrait by Randall. Image courtesy of the Bentley Historical
    Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
    .

    Thomas M. Cooley
    c. 1875
 
 
      In 1898 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that publicly supported need-based college scholarships violated the state and federal constitutions. The court's unanimous opinion found that the scholarship program constituted "paternalism ... a plant that should receive no nourishment upon the soil of Missouri." 1 This opinion was not unusual; other courts had struck down programs to give seeds to poor farmers, provide aid to rebuild burned cities, grant pensions to police officers, help widows of firefighters killed on duty, and offer relief to the indigent blind. In Michigan, state courts invalidated plans to fund the Detroit Museum of Art, drain marshes, and improve the corn crop. 1
      All of these decisions were the intellectual progeny of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas M. Cooley. Shaped by Jacksonian political precepts and Michigan's disastrous rail experience, Cooley advanced a constitutional analysis that prohibited government from assisting or showing favoritism to specific industries. While Cooley looked on approvingly, courts across the country followed Michigan's lead, declaring unconstitutional a wealth of legislative efforts to assist not only industry but also private individuals. These Cooley-inspired rulings would ultimately be employed to limit government's ability to legislate for the common welfare. . . .
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