Leadership Quote by Frank Murphy

Nothing plays better in American civic religion than a paean to actual religion. Frank Murphy’s line elevates free exercise and free expression into the top tier of social values, but the move is doing more than praising piety. It’s a constitutional power play: by yoking the First Amendment to the Fourteenth, Murphy isn’t merely defending belief; he’s nationalizing it.

That Fourteenth Amendment name-check matters. It signals the post-Civil War machinery that lets the federal Constitution reach into the states, a reminder that “our society” isn’t just a cultural description but a legal jurisdiction. Murphy, a politician-turned-justice in an era shadowed by war, authoritarian propaganda, and suspicion of minorities, is effectively arguing that religious liberty is not a local courtesy or majority favor. It’s a federally protected status, enforceable even when a state, a school board, or a wartime bureaucracy would prefer conformity.

The phrasing “practice and proclaim” doubles the protection: private devotion and public speech. That pairing anticipates the recurring American conflict where governments claim to tolerate belief so long as it stays quiet, while believers (and dissenters) insist that conscience has a public footprint. Murphy’s “higher estate” is a moral ranking disguised as constitutional interpretation, aimed at foreclosing utilitarian trade-offs: no, you don’t get to balance away conscience because it’s inconvenient, unpopular, or politically risky.

The subtext is classic mid-century liberalism with spine: pluralism is not sentimental; it’s structural. Protect the right to proclaim, and you protect the messy democracy that comes with it.