Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

14 

ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

Opinion of the Court 

But  no  comparable  “historic  and  substantial”  tradition
supports Montana’s decision to disqualify religious schools 
from  government  aid.    In  the  founding  era  and  the  early 
19th  century,  governments  provided  financial  support  to 
private schools, including denominational ones.  “Far from 
prohibiting such support, the early state constitutions and
statutes actively encouraged this policy.”  L. Jorgenson, The
State  and  the  Non-Public  School,  1825–1925,  p.  4  (1987); 
e.g., R. Gabel, Public Funds for Church and Private Schools 
210, 217–218, 221, 241–243 (1937); C. Kaestle, Pillars of the
Republic:  Common  Schools  and  American  Society,  1760–
1860,  pp.  166–167  (1983).    Local  governments  provided
grants to private schools, including religious ones, for the 
education of the poor.  M. McConnell, et al., Religion and 
the Constitution 318–319 (4th ed. 2016).  Even States with 
bans on government-supported clergy, such as New Jersey,
Pennsylvania,  and  Georgia,  provided  various  forms  of  aid 
to religious schools.  See Kaestle, supra, at 166–167; Gabel, 
supra, at 215–218, 241–245, 372–374; cf. Locke, 540 U. S., 
at 723.  Early federal aid (often land grants) went to reli-
gious schools.  McConnell, supra, at 319.  Congress provided
support to denominational schools in the District of Colum-
bia  until  1848,  ibid.,  and  Congress  paid  churches  to  run 
schools for American Indians through the end of the 19th 
century, see Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U. S. 50, 78 (1908); 
Gabel,  supra,  at  521–523.    After  the  Civil  War,  Congress
spent large sums on education for emancipated freedmen,
often  by  supporting  denominational  schools  in  the  South 
through  the  Freedmen’s  Bureau.    McConnell,  supra,  at 
323.3 

—————— 

3 JUSTICE  BREYER  sees  “no  meaningful  difference”  between  concerns
animating bans on support for clergy and bans on support for religious 
schools.  Post, at 8–10.  But evidently early American governments did. 
See  supra,  at  14.  JUSTICE  BREYER  contests  particular  examples  but 
acknowledges that some bans on clergy support did not bar certain “spon-
sorship” of religious schools.  Post, at 10.  And, central to the issue here,