Thomas Cooley was chief justice of Michigan’s Supreme Court, president of the American Bar Association and the first chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. His commentaries were influential in shaping American law.
He declined offers to teach at Hastings College of Law, University of Texas, Johns Hopkins University, Boston Law School, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell Law School.
In “Constitutional Limitations,” eighth Edition, Volume 2, p. 966, 974, Thomas Cooley stated: “While thus careful to establish, protect, and defend religious freedom and equality, the American constitutions contain no provisions which prohibit the authorities from such solemn recognition of a superintending Providence in public transactions and exercises as the general religious sentiment of mankind inspires, and as seems meet and proper in finite and dependent beings.”
Cooley continued: “Whatever may be the shades of religious belief, all must acknowledge the fitness of recognizing in important human affairs the superintending care and control of the great Governor of the Universe, and of acknowledging with thanksgiving His boundless favors, of bowing in contrition when visited with the penalties of His broken laws.”
