Herbert J. Storing (January 28, 1928 – September 9, 1977) was an American political scientist with broad ranging interests who is best known for reviving the serious study of the American Founding. The constitutional theorist and American politics scholar Walter Berns called him "the most profound man I have encountered in the field of American studies."
Career
Storing received his A.B. degree from Colgate University in 1950. He then attended the University of Chicago, earning his A.M. in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1956. His dissertation chair was C. Herman Pritchett and he studied with Leonard D. White, Robert Horn and Leo Strauss. and, together with Martin Diamond, testified before Congress regarding the Electoral College. Characteristic of that approach was Charles A. Beard’s 1913 book Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, which maintained that "the structure of the Constitution of the United States was motivated primarily by the personal financial interests of the Founding Fathers."
In contrast, Storing helped create a new approach to the American founding within the fields of political science and political theory, one whose principles held that the thought of the American founders could and should be understood as relevant to the contemporary study of politics. For Storing, that meant engaging with the arguments of the founders on their own terms, as opposed to reading those arguments primarily in light of the social, political, and economic conditions that likely shaped them.
Emblematic of Storing's concern with the founding is his treatment of the Federalist-Anti-Federalist debates, to whose study he contributed his 1981 seven-volume study, The Complete Anti-Federalist, which was described by a New York Times reviewer as "a work of magnificent scholarship" and its publication a "civic event of enduring importance." For Storing, the issues raised in this debate, some of which were unresolved at the time and remain unresolved today, pertain to the essential nature of the American regime, and are therefore of enduring relevance to scholars of all aspects of American politics.
Race and politics
Storing began teaching and writing about race and politics well before the topic became important for the field of political science. For example, Storing published his first writing on race and politics, "The School of Slavery: A Reconsideration of Booker T. Washington," in 1964, whereas the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association was not founded until 1995. His singular contribution was to show how black Americans are culturally in the position to see the American regime more clearly than do white Americans. and the "fugitive slave clause"—or tacitly acknowledged it—the clause prohibiting the outlawing of the slave trade until after 1808—the core elements of the Constitution were progressively egalitarian.
Public administration and the public interest
Storing emphasized the importance of the common good, as opposed to the mere aggregation of competing goods, in thinking about how individuals and groups relate to the polity to which they belong. As a consequence, Storing developed a searching critique both of the idea of scientific administration and of theories of pluralism and group politics. For Storing, "[j]ust what specific civil rights and duties flow from government’s origin in natural rights is by no means obvious and thus defines much of the task of both lawmakers and jurists in a liberal political order." Storing showed that leading Federalists were committed to a political future in which uniform and effective administration would not depend on citizens’ private virtue, but rather would be guaranteed by the workings of a carefully designed central government.) or that the President is a unitary executive with discretion on its own, and accountable to no other elements in the regime (e.g., the Congress) besides the people at large. Storing argued that "[t]he beginning of wisdom about the American presidency is to see that it contains both principles [i.e., the administrative and the political] and to reflect on their complex and subtle relation."
Personal life and teaching
Storing was born on January 29, 1928, in Ames, Iowa. His father, James A. Storing, was a professor, Provost and, for a time, acting president of Colgate University. As his close friend Walter Berns recalled, "It seemed to me that he must have served on at least half of the [University of Chicago political science] department’s dissertation committees, a disproportionate number as chairman. At any rate, I have a memory of manuscripts piled on his desk awaiting his attention. Unlike some professors I have known, Storing read them all with great care. His students will attest to this." Michael Zuckert, Jeffrey K. Tulis, John Rohr, Murray Dry and Gary Schmitt.
Storing regularly provided his graduate students with further opportunities to learn outside of the classroom, hosting extra-curricular seminars as well as reading groups.