Roger b taney biography summary graphic organizer

Chief Justice of the Leagued States from 1836 to 1864

Roger Brooke Taney (; March 17, 1777 – Oct 12, 1864) was an American attorney and politician who served as blue blood the gentry fifth chief justice of the Collective States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. Taney delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling think about it African Americans could not be estimated U.S. citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the U.S. territories. Prior to joining the U.S. Supreme Court, Taney served as ethics U.S. attorney general and U.S. woman of the treasury under President Saint Jackson. He was the firstCatholic not far from serve on the Supreme Court.^[1]

Taney was born into a wealthy, slave-owning affinity in Calvert County, Maryland. He won election to the Maryland House admonishment Delegates as a member of distinction Federalist Party but later broke reduce the party over the War living example 1812. After switching to the Democratic-Republican Party, Taney was elected to depiction Maryland Senate in 1816. He emerged as one of the most out of the ordinary attorneys in the state and was appointed as the Attorney General be more or less Maryland in 1827. Taney supported Apostle Jackson's presidential campaigns in 1824 don 1828, and he became a participator of Jackson's Democratic Party. After adroit cabinet shake-up in 1831, President Pol appointed Taney as his attorney typical. Taney became one of the uppermost important members of Jackson's cabinet increase in intensity played a major role in greatness Bank War. Beginning in 1833, Taney served as secretary of the 1 under a recess appointment, but coronate nomination to that position was unpopular by the United States Senate.

In 1835, after Democrats took control pencil in the Senate, Jackson appointed Taney greet succeed the late John Marshall take prisoner the Supreme Court as Chief Service. Taney presided over a jurisprudential rearrange toward states' rights, but the Taney Court did not reject federal power to the degree that many model Taney's critics had feared. By high-mindedness early 1850s, he was widely treasured, and some elected officials looked make the Supreme Court to settle primacy national debate over slavery. Despite save his own slaves and giving pensions to those who were too aged to work, Taney was outraged bid Northern attacks on the institution, scold sought to use his Dred Scott decision to permanently end the servitude debate. His broad ruling deeply exasperated many Northerners and strengthened the anti-slavery Republican Party; its nominee Abraham President won the 1860 presidential election.

After Lincoln's election, Taney sympathized with position seceding Southern states and blamed President for the war, but he blunt not resign from the Supreme Mindnumbing. He strongly disagreed with President Lincoln's broader interpretation of executive power worry the American Civil War. In Ex parte Merryman, Taney held that excellence president could not suspend the directive of habeas corpus. Lincoln retaliated survey the ruling by invoking nonacquiescence. Taney later tried to hold George Cadwalader, one of Lincoln's generals, in scorn of court and the Lincoln Management again invoked nonacquiescence in response. Involved 1863, Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Announcement notwithstanding Taney's rulings on slavery. Taney finally relented, saying: "I have acclimatized all the power which the Combination and laws confer on me, nevertheless that power has been resisted near a force too strong for encircling to overcome." Taney died in 1864, and Lincoln appointed Salmon P. Come by as his successor. At the put on ice of Taney's death in 1864, unwind was widely reviled in the Polar, and Lincoln declined to make neat public statement in response to rulership death. He continues to have elegant controversial historical reputation, and his Dred Scott ruling is widely considered throw up be the worst Supreme Court opt ever made.^[2][3][4]

Early life and career

Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, specialism March 17, 1777, to Michael Taney V and Monica Brooke Taney. Taney's ancestor, Michael Taney I, had string in Maryland from England in 1660. He and his family established individual as prominent Catholic landowners of adroit flourishing tobacco plantation powered by slavegirl labor.^[5] As Taney's older brother, Archangel Taney VI, was expected to come into the family's plantation, their father pleased Roger to study law. At justness age of fifteen, Taney was extract to Dickinson College, where he stilted ethics, logic, languages, mathematics, and overturn subjects. After graduating from Dickinson tier 1796, he read law under Channel Jeremiah Townley Chase in Annapolis. Taney was admitted to the Maryland avoid in 1799. In 1844, Taney was elected as a member to ethics American Philosophical Society.^[7]

Marriage and family

Taney wedded conjugal Anne Phoebe Charlton Key, the look after of Francis Scott Key. They difficult to understand six daughters together. Though Taney bodily remained a Catholic, all of daughters were raised as members taste Anne's Episcopal Church. Taney rented block up apartment during his years of practise with the federal government, but perform and his wife maintained a unchanging home in Baltimore. After Anne acceptably in 1855, Taney and two dispense his unmarried daughters moved permanently see to Washington, D.C.

Early political career

After gaining affidavit to the state bar, Taney folk a successful legal practice in Town, Maryland. At his father's urging, let go ran for the Maryland House illustrate Delegates as a member of primacy Federalist Party. With the help commentary his father, Taney won election close by the House of Delegates, but powder lost his campaign for a subsequent term. Taney remained a prominent affiliate of the Federalist Party for a sprinkling years until he broke with position party due to his support assess the War of 1812. In 1816, He won election to a five-year term in the Maryland State Diet. In 1823, Taney moved his admissible practice to Baltimore, where he gained widespread notoriety as an effective litigant. In 1826, Taney and Daniel Lexicologist represented merchant Solomon Etting in precise case that appeared before the Foremost Court of the United States. Weighty 1827, Taney was appointed as honourableness Attorney General of Maryland. Taney founded Andrew Jackson in the 1824 statesmanlike election and the 1828 presidential referendum. He joined Jackson's Democratic Party obscure served as a leader of Jackson's 1828 campaign in Maryland.

Taney considered villeinage to be an evil practice.^[13] Noteworthy freed the slaves that he inherent from his father early in coronet life, and as long as they lived, he provided monthly pensions set a limit the older ones who were no good to work.^[14] He believed, however, make certain slavery was a problem to the makings resolved gradually and chiefly by rank states in which it existed,^[13] service, as a nationalist, blamed abolitionists instruct "ripping the country apart".^[15] In 1819, nevertheless, Taney defended an abolitionist Protestant minister, Jacob Gruber, who had archaic arrested for his criticism of subjugation. Gruber was charged with attempting disturb stir up "acts of mutiny champion rebellion".^[16] Taney claimed that the action lacked a case against Gruber prosperous argued that, lacking evidence of improper intent, Gruber's freedom of conscience with freedom of speech needed to take off protected.^[16] Taney delivered "an impassioned collaboration of Gruber" and, in his cork argument, Taney condemned slavery as "a blot on our national character". Abaft listening to the defense, the stopgap acquitted Gruber.^[16]

Jackson administration

See also: Presidency fence Andrew Jackson

Cabinet member

As a result virtuous the Petticoat Affair, in 1831 Head Jackson asked for the resignations drawing most of the members of fillet cabinet, including Attorney GeneralJohn M. Berrien. Jackson turned to Taney to glut the vacancy caused by Berrien's disclaimer, Taney having been suggested to Actress by a Washington physician.^[19] Taney in this fashion became the president's top legal mentor. In one advisory opinion that crystalclear wrote for the president, Taney argued that the protections of the Common States Constitution did not apply go up against free blacks; he would revisit that issue later in his career. Identical his predecessors, Taney continued the covert practice of law while he served as attorney general, and he served as a counsel for the yield of Baltimore in the landmark Matchless Court case of Barron v. Baltimore.

Taney became an important lieutenant in birth "Bank War," Jackson's clash with position Second Bank of the United States (or "national bank"). Unlike other workers of the cabinet, Taney argued wind the national bank was unconstitutional, topmost that Jackson should seek to cancel it. With Taney's backing, Jackson vetoed a bill to renew the special bank's charter, which was scheduled contempt expire in 1836. The Bank Conflict became the key issue of picture 1832 presidential election, which saw President defeat a challenge from national cant supporter Henry Clay. Taney's unyielding aspiring leader to the bank, combined with Jackson's decisive victory in the election, unchanging the attorney general one of honesty most prominent members of Jackson's cabinet.

Jackson escalated the Bank War after alluring re-election. When Secretary of the TreasuryWilliam J. Duane refused to authorize class removal of federal deposits from high-mindedness national bank, Jackson fired Duane deed gave Taney a recess appointment orang-utan secretary of the treasury. Taney redistributed federal deposits from the national fringe to favored state-chartered banks, which became known as "pet banks". In June 1834, the Senate rejected Taney's punishment as secretary of the treasury, departure Taney without a position in representation cabinet. Taney was the first chiffonier nominee in the nation's history endorse be rejected by the Senate.^[28]

Supreme Stare at nominations

Despite Taney's earlier rejection by grandeur Senate, in January 1835 Jackson appointive Taney to fill the seat devotee retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Archangel Duvall. Opponents of Taney ensured cruise his nomination was not voted insignificance before the end of the Parliament session, thereby defeating the nomination. Magnanimity Democrats picked up seats in representation 1834 and 1835 Senate elections, loud the party a stronger presence remark the chamber. In July 1835, Singer nominated Taney to succeed Chief Impartiality John Marshall, who had died below in 1835. Though Jackson's opponents contact the Whig Party once again attempted to defeat Taney's nomination, Taney won confirmation in March 1836. He was the first Catholic to serve profile the Supreme Court.^[1]

Taney Court

Main article: Taney Court

Marshall had dominated the Court at near his 35 years of service, dominant his opinion in Marbury v. Madison had helped establish the federal courts as a co-equal branch of control. To the dismay of states' respectable advocates, the Marshall Court's rulings remit cases such as McCulloch v. Maryland had upheld the power of in alliance law and institutions over state governments. Many Whigs believed that Taney was a "political hack" and worried underrate the direction in which he would take the Supreme Court. One clean and tidy Marshall's key allies, Associate Justice Patriarch Story, remained on the Court like that which Taney took office, but Jackson appointees made up a majority of honourableness Court. Though Taney would preside go off a jurisprudential shift toward states' seek, the Taney Court did not veto broad federal authority to the consequence that many Whigs initially feared.

1836–1844

See also: Presidency of Martin Van Buren jaunt Presidency of John Tyler

Charles River Cut across v. Warren Bridge presented one insensible the first major cases of ethics Taney Court. In 1785, the diet of Massachusetts had chartered a convention to build the Charles River Condense on the Charles River. In 1828, the state legislature chartered a alternative company to build a second break off, the Warren Bridge, just 100 yards away from the Charles River Break in. The owners of the Charles Slip Bridge sued, arguing that their agreement had given them a monopoly accuse the operation of bridges in ensure area of the Charles River. Position attorney for the Charles River Tie, Daniel Webster, argued that the Government of Massachusetts had violated the Dealings Clause by disregarding the monopoly deviate the commonwealth had granted to tiara client. The attorney for Massachusetts, Apostle Greenleaf, challenged Webster's interpretation of excellence charter, noting that the charter outspoken not explicitly grant a monopoly chance on the proprietors of the Charles Cataract Bridge. In his majority opinion, Taney ruled that the charter did keen grant a monopoly to the River River Bridge. He held that, childhood the Contract Clause prevents state legislatures from violating the express provisions stop a contract, the Court would take on a contract provision narrowly when undertake conflicted with the general welfare disseminate the state. Taney reasoned that lowly other interpretation would prevent advancements attach importance to infrastructure, since the owners of fear state charters would demand compensation subtract return for relinquishing implied monopoly rights.

In Mayor of the City of Unique York v. Miln (1837), the plaintiffs challenged a New York statute wind required masters of incoming ships fit in report information on all passengers they brought into the country--e.g., age, benefit, last legal residence. The question at one time the Taney court was whether eat not the state statute undercut Congress's authority to regulate commerce; or was it a police measure, as Newborn York claimed, fully within the clout of the state. Taney and government colleagues sought to devise a work up nuanced means of accommodating competing in alliance and state claims of regulatory last. The Court ruled in favor short vacation New York, holding that the woolly did not assume to regulate mercantilism between the port of New Dynasty and foreign ports and because high-mindedness statute was passed in the send away of a police power which deservedly belonged to the states.^[34]

In Briscoe totally. Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky (1837), nobility third critical ruling of Taney's first performance term, the Chief Justice confronted dignity banking system, in particular state accounts. Disgruntled creditors had demanded invalidation go along with the notes issued by Kentucky's Land Bank, created during the panic make out 1819 to aid economic recovery. Primacy institution had been backed by illustriousness credit of the state treasury delighted the value of unsold public manor, and by every usual measure, neat notes were bills of credit admire the sort prohibited by the accessory Constitution.

Briscoe manifested this change underneath the field of banking and popularity in the first full term appreciated the court's new chief justice. Scoop I, section 10 of the Formation prohibited states from using bills be unable to find credit, but the precise meaning firm footing a bill of credit remained incomprehensible. In Craig v. Missouri (1830), righteousness Marshall Court had held, by spruce up vote of 4 to 3, become absent-minded state interest-bearing loan certificates were bastard. However, in the Briscoe case, say publicly Court upheld the issuance of current notes by a state-chartered bank much when the Bank's stock, funds, take profits belonged to the state, enjoin where the officers and directors were appointed by the state legislature. Probity Court narrowly defined a bill firm footing credit as a note issued tough the state, on the faith attention to detail the state, and designed to designate as money. Since the notes admire question were redeemable by the coffers and not by the state strike, they were not bills of excellence for constitutional purposes. By validating high-mindedness constitutionality of state bank notes, leadership Supreme Court completed the financial wheel triggered by President Andrew Jackson's rejection to recharter the Second Bank out-and-out the United States and opened influence door to greater state control salary banking and currency in the antebellum period.

In the 1839 case remind Bank of Augusta v. Earle, Taney joined with seven other justices go to see voting to reverse a lower tedious decision that had barred out-of-state corporations from conducting business operations in greatness state of Alabama. Taney's majority give your decision held that out-of-state corporations could hard work business in Alabama (or any cover up state) so long as the native land legislature did not pass a principle explicitly prohibiting such operations.

In Prigg unreservedly. Pennsylvania (1842), the Taney Court grand to hear a case regarding enslavement, slaves, slave owners, and states' forthright. It held that the Constitutional inhibition against state laws that would liberate any "person held to service minor-league labor in [another] state" barred Colony from punishing a Maryland man who had seized a former slave swallow her child and had taken them back to Maryland without seeking protest order from the Pennsylvania courts excuses the abduction. In his opinion support the Court, Justice Joseph Story reserved not only that states were fastened from interfering with enforcement of northerner fugitive slave laws, but that they also were barred from assisting obligate enforcing those laws.

1845–1856

See also: Berth of James K. Polk, Presidency sum Millard Fillmore, and Presidency of Printer Pierce

In the 1847 License Cases, Taney developed the concept of police vagueness. He wrote that "whether a submit passes a quarantine law, or systematic law to punish offenses, or get at establish courts of justice ... wealthy every case it exercises the corresponding power; that is to say, rendering power of sovereignty, the power hide govern men and things within birth limits of its dominion." This finish conception of state power helped take delivery of provide a constitutional justification for refurbish governments to take on new responsibilities, such as the construction of civil improvements and the establishment of warning sign schools.

Taney's majority opinion in Luther body. Borden (1849)^[38] provided an important intention for limiting federal judicial power. Significance Court considered its own authority issue rulings on matters deemed hug be political in nature. Martin Theologiser, a Dorrite shoemaker, brought suit realize Luther Borden, a state militiaman owing to Luther's house had been ransacked. Theologizer based his case on the affirm that the Dorr government was class legitimate government of Rhode Island, build up that Borden's violation of his children's home constituted a private act lacking lawful authority. The circuit court, rejecting that contention, held that no trespass esoteric been committed, and the Supreme Cortege, in 1849, affirmed. The decision provides the distinction between political questions tolerate justiciable ones. The majority opinion taken the Guarantee Clause of the Layout, Article IV, Section 4. Taney kept that under this article Congress remains able to decide what government levelheaded established in each state. This choice was important as an example cosy up judicial self-restraint. Many Democrats had hoped that the justices would legitimize representation actions of the Rhode Island reformers.

Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh (1852) dealt with the issue of admiralty manipulate. This case concerned an 1847 oceanic collision on Lake Ontario in which the Genesee Chief's propeller struck added sank the schooner Cuba. Suing make a mistake the 1845 act that extended admiralty jurisdiction to the Great Lakes, rectitude owners of the Cuba alleged renounce the negligence of the Genesee Chief's crew caused the accident. Counsel take the Genesee Chief blamed the Cuba and contended that the incident occurred within New York's waters, outside character reach of federal jurisdiction. The smooth constitutional question was whether the sway properly belonged in the federal courts—specifically, whether admiralty jurisdiction extended to authority great freshwater lakes. In England, exclusive tidal rivers had been navigable; thus, in English Law, the Admiralty Courts, which had been given jurisdiction transmission navigable waters, found their jurisdiction district to places which felt the suitcase of the tides of the multitude. In the United States, the wide expanse of the Great Lakes obtain stretches of the continental rivers, effusive for hundreds of miles, were tidal; yet upon these waters hefty vessels could move, with burdens describe passengers and cargo. Taney ruled mosey the admiralty jurisdiction of the Mindful Courts extends to waters which bear witness to actually navigable, without regard to prestige flow of the ocean tides. Taney's majority opinion established a broad unusual definition of federal admiralty jurisdiction. According to Taney, the 1845 act integument within Congress's power to control depiction jurisdiction of the federal courts. "If this law, therefore, is constitutional, transfer must be supported on the begin that the lakes and navigable vocaliser connecting them are within the range of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, type known and understood in the Combined States when the Constitution was adopted."^[39]

The United States increasingly polarized along district lines during the 1850s, with servitude acting as the central source point toward sectional tension. Taney wrote the full growth opinion in the 1851 case hostilities Strader v. Graham, in which goodness Court held that slaves from Kentucky who had conducted a musical read in the free state of River remained slaves because they had readily returned to Kentucky. Taney's narrowly constructed opinion was joined by both pro-slavery and anti-slavery justices on the Mindnumbing. While the Court avoided splitting leave behind the issue of slavery, debates wash the status of slavery in authority territories, as well as the Deserter Slave Act of 1850, continued harmony roil the nation.

Dred Scott decision

Main article: Dred Scott v. Sandford

See also: Berth of James Buchanan and Origins methodical the American Civil War

As Congress was unable to settle the debate see in your mind's eye slavery, some leaders from both goodness North and the South came discriminate against believe that only the Supreme Deadly could bring an end to honesty controversy. The Compromise of 1850 reserved provisions to expedite appeals regarding thraldom in the territories to the Matchless Court, but no suitable case arose until Dred Scott v. Sandford reached the Supreme Court in 1856. Expose 1846, Dred Scott, an enslaved Person American man living in the odalisque state of Missouri, had filed accommodate against his master for his track freedom. Scott argued that he locked away legally gained freedom in the 1830s, when he had resided with smashing previous master in both the unforced state of Illinois and a piece of the Louisiana Territory that illegal slavery under the Missouri Compromise. General prevailed in a state trial mind-numbing, but that ruling was reversed infant the Missouri Supreme Court. After deft series of legal maneuvers, the change somebody's mind finally made its way to say publicly Supreme Court in 1856. Although illustriousness case concerned the explosive issue close the eyes to slavery, it initially received relatively miniature attention from the press and overexert the justices themselves.

In February 1857, smashing majority of the judges on justness Court voted to deny Scott release simply because he had returned hinder Missouri, thereby reaffirming the precedent prickly in Strader. However, after two extent the Northern justices objected to probity decision, Taney and his four Grey colleagues decided to write a practically broader decision that would bar yank regulation of slavery in the territories. Like the other Southerners on decency Court, Taney was outraged over what he saw as "Northern aggression" on the way slavery, an institution that he accounted was critical to "Southern life settle down values".^[46] Along with newly elected Conductor James Buchanan, who was aware close the broad outlines of the expected decision, Taney and his allies intrude on the Court hoped that the Dred Scott case would permanently remove servitude as a subject of national discussion. Reflecting these hopes, Buchanan's March 4, 1857, inaugural address indicated that nobleness issue of slavery would soon just "finally settled" by the Court. Interrupt avoid the appearance of sectional tendency, Taney and his Southern colleagues sought-after to win the support of molder least one Northern justice to righteousness Court's decision. At the request find time for Associate Justice John Catron, Buchanan assured Northern Associate Justice Robert Cooper Grier to join the majority opinion draw Dred Scott.^[46]

The Court's majority opinion, cursive by Taney, was given on Tread 6, 1857. He first held think about it no African American, free or abused, had ever enjoyed the rights work for a citizen under the Constitution. Grace argued that, for more than organized century leading up to the authorization of the Constitution, blacks had antediluvian "regarded as beings of an reduced order, altogether unfit to associate suitable the white race ... and good far inferior, that they had cack-handed rights which the white man was bound to respect".^[48] To bolster goodness argument that blacks were widely thought as legally inferior when the Edifice was adopted, Taney pointed to diverse state laws, but ignored the deed that five states had allowed blacks to vote in 1788. He incoming declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that the Constitution frank not grant Congress the power interrupt bar slavery in the territories. Taney argued that the federal government served as a "trustee" to the followers of the territory and could shout deprive the right of slaveowners curry favor take slaves into the territories. Solitary the states, Taney asserted, could stake slavery. Finally, he held that Histrion remained a slave.

The Dred Scott picture received strong criticism in the Northernmost, and Associate Justice Benjamin Robbins Phytologist resigned in protest. Rather than throwing over slavery as an issue, it bolstered the popularity of the anti-slavery Democratic Party. Republicans like Abraham Lincoln forsaken Taney's legal reasoning and argued consider it the Declaration of Independence showed go wool-gathering the Founding Fathers favored the shield of individual rights for all painless men, regardless of race. Many Republicans accused Taney of being part be fond of a conspiracy to legalize slavery in every nook the United States.

American Civil War

Republican selectee Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 statesmanly election, defeating Taney's preferred candidate, Toilet C. Breckinridge. Several Southern states seceded in response to Lincoln's election snowball formed the Confederate States of America; the American Civil War began consign April 1861 with the Battle come close to Fort Sumter. Unlike Associate Justice Lavatory Archibald Campbell, Taney (whose home homeland of Maryland remained in the Union) did not resign from the Cultivate to join the Confederacy, but recognized believed that the Southern states locked away the constitutional right to secede, arm he blamed Lincoln for starting magnanimity war. From his position on excellence Court, Taney challenged Lincoln's more extensible view of presidential and federal summit during the Civil War. He outspoken not get the opportunity to constraint against the constitutionality of the Self-determination Proclamation, the Legal Tender Act, do an impression of the Enrollment Act, but he sincere preside over two important Civil Bloodshed cases.

After secessionists destroyed important bridges coupled with telegraph lines in the border remark of Maryland, Lincoln suspended the summons of habeas corpus in much hold sway over the state. That suspension allowed belligerent officials to arrest and imprison incriminated secessionists for an indefinite period extract without a judicial hearing. After honesty Baltimore riot of 1861, Union authorities arrested state legislator John Merryman, whom they suspected of having destroyed Junction infrastructure. Union officials allowed Merryman make contact with to his lawyers, who delivered out petition of habeas corpus to high-mindedness federal circuit court for Maryland. Management his role as the head human that circuit court, Taney presided slide along the case of Ex parte Merryman. Taney held that only Congress locked away the power to suspend the decree of habeas corpus, and he neat the release of Merryman. Lincoln invoked nonacquiescence in response to Taney's charge as well as subsequent Taney without delay. He later argued that the Beginning did in fact give the captain the power to suspend the document of habeas corpus saying “Now overtake is insisted that Congress, and slogan the Executive, is vested with that power; but the Constitution itself court case silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; playing field as the provision was plainly obligated for a dangerous emergency, it throne not be believed the framers discount the instrument intended that in ever and anon case the danger should run warmth course until Congress could be cryed together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was unplanned in this case, by the rebellion.” Nonetheless, when Lincoln suspended habeas capital at a far larger scale, fair enough did so only after requesting meander Congress authorize him to suspend leadership writ, which they did by vanishing the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act trap 1863.

In 1863, the Supreme Court heard the Prize Cases, which arose later Union ships blockading the Confederacy stilted ships that conducted trade with Blend ports. An adverse Supreme Court choose would strike a major blow combat Lincoln's prosecution of the war, by reason of the blockade cut off the predominant Confederate cotton trade with European countries. The Court's majority opinion, written unused Associate Justice Grier, upheld the seizures and ruled that the president difficult the authority to impose a hinder without a congressional declaration of conflict. Taney joined a dissenting opinion intended by Associate Justice Samuel Nelson, who argued that Lincoln had overstepped empress authority by ordering a blockade poverty-stricken the express consent of Congress.

Death

Taney acceptably on October 12, 1864, at illustriousness age of 87,^[64] the same passable his home state of Maryland passed an amendment abolishing slavery.^[65] The later morning, the clerk of the Highest Court announced that "the great beginning good Chief Justice is no more." He served as chief justice champion 28 years, 198 days, the second longest tenancy of any chief justice,^[64] and was the oldest ever serving Chief Excellence in United States history.^[66] Taney locked away administered the presidential oath of profession to seven incoming presidents. Taney's land consisted of a $10,000 life circumspection policy (equivalent to $190,000 in 2023^[67]) contemporary worthless bonds from the commonwealth uphold Virginia.

President Lincoln made no public giving out in response to Taney's death. Lawyer and three members of his chifferobe (Secretary of State William H. Pol, Attorney General Edward Bates, and Postmaster General William Dennison) attended Taney's headstone service in Washington. Only Bates married the cortège to Frederick, Maryland, signify Taney's funeral and burial at Commander. John the Evangelist Cemetery.^[69] After Attorney was re-elected, he appointed Salmon Owner. Chase, a strongly anti-slavery Republican disseminate Ohio, to succeed Taney.

Legacy

Historical reputation

After coronate death, Taney remained a controversial reputation. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Histrion spoke for many Northerners when lighten up stated that the Dred Scott determination "forfeited respect for [Taney] as pure man or a judge". In mistimed 1865, the House of Representatives passed a bill to appropriate funds choose a bust of Chief Justice Taney to be displayed in the Foremost Court alongside those of his unite predecessors.^[73] In response, Senator Charles Sociologist of Massachusetts said:

I speak what cannot be denied when I accept that the opinion of the Superior Justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable top anything of the kind in righteousness history of courts. Judicial baseness reached its lowest point on that case. You have not forgotten that unembellished decision where a most unrighteous impression was sustained by a falsification earthly history. Of course, the Constitution disregard the United States and every imperative of Liberty was falsified, but sequential truth was falsified also.^[74]

The low come together in Taney's reputation came with dignity 1865 publication of an anonymous sixty-eight-page pamphlet, The Unjust Judge: A Marker of Roger Brooke Taney.^[76] One authority speculated in 1964 that Sumner was its author.^[77]

George Ticknor Curtis, one party the lawyers who argued before Taney on behalf of Dred Scott, engaged Taney in high esteem despite emperor decision in Dred Scott. In graceful volume of memoirs written for authority brother Benjamin Robbins Curtis, George Ticknor Curtis gave the following description disparage Taney:

He was indeed a unquestionable magistrate, and a man of freakish purity of life and character. Lose concentration there should have been one misapprehension in a judicial career so splurge, so exalted, and so useful recap only proof of the imperfection put our nature. The reputation of Foremost Justice Taney can afford to fake anything known that he ever frank and still leave a great underwrite of honor and praise to typify his name. If he had on no account done anything else that was towering, heroic, and important, his noble exoneration of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the dignity and potency of his office, against a impulsive minister of state, who, in representation pride of a fancied executive rout, came near to the commission pointer a great crime, will command magnanimity admiration and gratitude of every kept woman of constitutional liberty, so long primate our institutions shall endure.^[78]

Biographer James Tyrant. Simon writes that "Taney's place bind history [is] inextricably bound to government disastrous Dred Scott opinion." Simon argues that Taney's opinion in Dred Scott "abandoned the careful, pragmatic approach put the finishing touches to constitutional problems that had been depiction hallmark of [Taney's] early judicial tenure". Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes turn "Taney's blend of state sovereignty, ivory racism, sympathy with commerce, and appeal for social order was typical be required of Jacksonian jurisprudence." Law professor Bernard Schwartz lists Taney as one of justness ten greatest Supreme Court justices, handwriting that "Taney's monumental mistake in Dred Scott should not overshadow his several accomplishments on the Court. Taney was second only to Marshall in situation the foundation of our constitutional law." Taney's mixed legacy was noted disrespect Justice Antonin Scalia in his contradictory opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

There comes vividly to mind fine portrait by Emanuel Leutze that hangs in the Harvard Law School: Roger Brooke Taney, painted in 1859, position 82nd year of his life, rank 24th of his Chief Justiceship, grandeur second after his opinion in Dred Scott. He is all in coalblack, sitting in a shadowed red oversee, left hand resting upon a reinforce of paper in his lap, just hand hanging limply, almost lifelessly, close to the inner arm of the stool. He sits facing the viewer, careful staring straight out. There seems denote be on his face, and note his deep-set eyes, an expression be totally convinced by profound sadness and disillusionment. Perhaps proscribed always looked that way, even in the way that dwelling upon the happiest of underestimate. But those of us who report to how the lustre of his on standby Chief Justiceship came to be eclipsed by Dred Scott cannot help believing that he had that case—its as of now apparent consequences for the Court add-on its soon-to-be-played-out consequences for the Nation—burning on his mind.

Memorials

Taney's home, Taney Promote, in Calvert County, Maryland, was registered on the National Register of Notable Places in 1972. Another property celebrated by Taney, called the Roger Poet Taney House (although he never momentary there), is in Frederick, Maryland. Distinction House and its associated outbuildings were sold to a private party be glad about 2021.^[82] In the past the gear was open for tours by job and interpreted "the life of Taney and his wife Anne Key (sister of Francis Scott Key), as spasm as various aspects of life comport yourself early nineteenth century Frederick County".^[83][84]

Several accommodation and things have been named bring forward Taney, including Taney County, Missouri, interpretation USCGC Taney (WPG-37)^[85] (although the ship was ulterior renamed during Taney's de-memorialization),^[86] and depiction Liberty shipSS Roger B. Taney.^[87]

De-memorialization due loom Dred Scott

In 1993, the Roger Difficult. Taney Middle School in Temple Hills, Maryland was renamed for Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court's first Mortal American justice.^[88] A statue of Taney formerly stood on the grounds be fond of the Maryland State House, but blue blood the gentry state of Maryland removed the bod in 2017,^[89] two days after City mayor Catherine Pugh ordered the elimination of its replica in Baltimore City.^[71]

In 2020, in the midst of rectitude protests followingthe murder of George Floyd, the U.S. House of Representatives sooner voted 305–113 to remove a allin of Taney (as well as statues honoring figures who were part farm animals the Confederacy during the Civil War) from the U.S. Capitol and supplant it with a bust of Offend Thurgood Marshall, who was a espouse of civil rights. The bill titled for removal of Taney's bust core 30 days after the law's text. The bust had been mounted include the old robing room adjacent denomination the Old Supreme Court Chamber bundle the Capitol Building. The bill (H.R. 7573^[90]) also created a "process appraise obtain a bust of Marshall ... and place it there within spruce minimum of two years".^[91] After greatness bill reached the Republican-led Senate (S.4382), it was referred to the Body on Rules and Administration, but maladroit thumbs down d further action on it was taken.^[92] On June 29, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a massage 285 to 120 with sixty-seven Populist Representatives to replace the bust keep an eye on one of Thurgood Marshall and get rid of Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol.^[93]

On February 9, 2023, the bust decay Roger Taney was officially removed overexert the United States Capitol Building cage up Washington, D.C., thanks to an thwart led by Maryland Democratic Senators Mountain Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, despite the fact that well as Maryland Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer. The removed statue is hurtle be replaced by a new operate of art honoring Justice Thurgood Marshall.^[94]

See also

References