Clarence Thomas Thinks He Is Moses

The Supreme Court Justice’s speech in Austin.

By Jeremi Suri

On Wednesday afternoon, I had the privilege of attending a rare public lecture delivered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the University of Texas at Austin. He did not deliver a fluff talk, but a serious, thoughtful, detailed address articulating his judicial philosophy. I respect him for that. He encouraged listeners to think deeply, get engaged, and argue about issues affecting the future of our country. I will take up Justice Thomas’ suggestion and engage with his arguments. His lecture was substantive, but wrong-headed and dangerous.

Justice Thomas’ main claim was that the Declaration of Independence is the core text for American democracy. He quoted it repeatedly, especially the claim: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” He emphasized that the Declaration defined these rights as natural, God-given: “My principle is clear: we are created equal in the eyes of God. All rights come from God, not government.” The American government was formed, according to Thomas, to “secure these rights,” not change them. He extolled the signers of the Declaration for their courage and devotion in defending these rights.

Justice Thomas also praised his grandparents for believing in equal rights despite the Jim Crow segregation that they endured in mid-century Georgia. They instilled a strong faith in Thomas and his brother, he recounted. What was strange was that he had little to say about the advances in equality during the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent decades. Efforts at inclusion seemed less important than faith. Thomas appeared to care more about the content of the Declaration than the practice that followed from it.

If the proposition that all people are created equal is fundamental, as Justice Thomas claimed, does that apply to gay, lesbian, and transgender marriage? Are they entitled to equal marriage rights? In Obergefell v. Hodges, Thomas voted no. No equality there.

What about immigrants? If all men are created equal, as the Declaration states, shouldn't that include immigrants, not just citizens? In 2025, Justice Thomas joined Justice Samuel Alito in denying that immigrants were entitled to due process, like citizens, before deportation or other prosecution.

Justice Thomas explicitly separated himself from the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who made some similar rulings, based on a close reading of the Constitution and the original intent of the Founders. Scalia’s approach was controversial, but it was consistent and drew on the skills of lawyers and judges, trained to read and interpret text.

In his lecture, Justice Thomas took a very different and disturbing approach. He argued that the Declaration of Independence was not to be interpreted or analyzed critically. He repeatedly condemned scholars, journalists, and lawyers for inventing “fancy language” to “hide in the tall grass” and distort the plain language of the document. The Declaration is what it is. “All men are created equal” by God, and Thomas clearly knows which men those are and what it means for them to be equal. He offered no textual explanation, no serious historical analysis of the writers of those words, and no reasoning for why equality meant no slavery for Justice Thomas, but also no gay marriage and no immigrant due process.

His lecture was really a priestly pronouncement, a sacred reading of a Godly text that listeners were to take in and accept on faith – a word he repeated more often than “Constitution” or “law.” Justice Thomas was telling us to bow before the Declaration and follow his idiosyncratic understanding of personhood and equality. This is a biblical approach, not the reading of a lawyer or a judge. This is Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the commandments, here the Declaration of Independence.

One can agree with Justice Thomas’ claims or not, but what gives him the right to impose them on the country? What makes his Declaration the correct one for everyone? Justice Scalia and others would argue that their readings, based on text and history, draw on training as lawyers; that is what they are expected to do. But Thomas is doing something different. He is promoting a faith-based understanding of natural rights and a religious reading of the Declaration.

What qualifies him to do that? What gives judges the power to interpret something allegedly from God rather than human law? Judges are supposed to work within the texts and laws that governments make, not the religious judgments of God’s will. Thomas’ treatment of the Declaration of Independence in faith-based terms detracts from his legitimacy as a judge; he is not a priest or an imam. The Supreme Court is a group of highly respected lawyers, not a college of cardinals with a special connection to God that they can impose upon us.

To justify his bold religious imposition, Justice Thomas found a scapegoat. He condemned President Woodrow Wilson as the chief heretic who allegedly denied the natural rights in the Declaration of Independence. Wilson’s blasphemy was to advocate progress, moving beyond basic equal rights, trying to do more. Thomas gave few details, but he described Wilson as a man who sought to “leave behind the principles of the founding.”

That characterization would surely surprise Wilson, one of the first American Ph.D.s in history and political science, who wrote a seminal book called Congressional Government. Wilson supported legislation to protect workers’ rights, ban child labor, prevent monopoly, and promote the safety of banking, among other reforms. Wilson also supported segregation, as most presidents had since the founding. What made him so much more antithetical to the Declaration’s principles than his predecessors?

For Justice Thomas, Wilson was “progressive,” which meant that he did not accept the traditional, limited interpretation of equal rights and the traditional, limited scope of government power in pursuit of those rights. Strangely, Wilson was not different on this expansive view of government from his predecessor, Republican Theodore Roosevelt, whom Thomas did not mention. Wilson actually claimed he was living by the principles of the Declaration by doing the things he did, including supporting self-determination abroad, another topic that Thomas neglected.

In his lecture, Justice Thomas associated “progressives” with Stalin and Hitler. He said they “disdained the American people,” and he surely meant these comments to color views of later progressives, including many Democrats today. He treated them not as worthy people trying to address serious problems, but as heretics who have departed from the sacred text as he reads it. He offered no reasoning or analysis beyond that, just faith again, in defining friends and enemies.

Every American is entitled to their own faith, and every faith should be respected in our democracy. But no faith should be imposed, especially not by the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas’ lecture on the Declaration of Independence showed that he is trying to smuggle a narrow faith-based approach to rights into law and government. He called on listeners to fight for this essential truth – not to compromise or to consider alternatives.

I respect Justice Thomas’ faith and his love of the Declaration of Independence. But he cannot use the Declaration as a battering ram to crush different interpretations of equality, personhood, and justice. He should stick to interpreting the law, not imposing his personal moral judgments on others. As his conservative former colleague, Justice Scalia, would agree: judges should not act as priests or prophets. What we really need are fair-minded readers of the law – more John Marshall than Moses.

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Jeremi Suri - Korey Howell Photography

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”