Taney, Roger Brooke (1777-1864)

Roger Brooke Taney (1777-1864)

Sources

Chief justice of the u.s. supreme court

Taney in History. Roger Brooke Taney is remembered generally for having authored the majority decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), perhaps the single worst decision in the history of the Supreme Court—a “ghastly error” by the reckoning of one important legal scholar. According to a later chief justice, Charles Evans Hughes, Dred Scott became one clear example where “the Court … suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds.” Yet regardless of that notorious decision, a small but formidable body of judicial scholars in the late twentieth century consider Taney to be one of the great justices of the Supreme Court, ranked alongside John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Background and Early Career. Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, in 1777 to an aristocratic planter family. He was educated in rural schools and by a private tutor before attending Dickinson College, where he graduated in 1795. Taney began to practice law in 1799. He was a staunch Federalist, serving first in the Maryland legislature as a member of the House of Delegates, then as a state senator. He broke with his party during the War of 1812 and eventually switched his allegiance to the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. By the mid 1820s Taney’s politics were Jacksonian in nature. He supported states’ rights, opposed monopolies, and was the author of Jackson’s veto of the act that would have extended the charter of the Bank of the United States. After serving as Jackson’s attorney general and briefly as secretary of war, Taney became chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1835.

Chief Justice. Taney was attacked by anti-Jacksonians as a “political hack” who was appointed on partisan grounds rather than merit. Others saw him as an unworthy successor to the great John Marshall, who died in July 1835. Taney’s decisions conformed to the Jacksonian vision of the West, including its philosophy of state sovereignty, belief in the sanctity of private property, and defense of slavery. Taney heard a broad spectrum of cases over the course of his tenure, and some of the most significant reflected the controversial movements affecting the nation during a period of national expansion. In Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) Taney confronted a conflict arising out of the rapid growth of corporations and the impact of such commercial growth on the rights of communities. “While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded,” he wrote in the majority decision, “we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation.” The chief justice sought to protect the rights of states to regulate commerce by interpreting the Constitution’s commerce clause—which empowered Congress to regulate interstate trade—narrowly. He was a staunch believer that the states were best suited to respond to the great questions that faced the nation.

Slavery. No doubt Taney believed in the fundamental inequality of races and that whites deserved to be dominant over blacks. To Taney’s mind African and European Americans could never peacefully coexist in a nation in which both were free and equal. Such a view placed Taney alongside other white Southerners of his age. Yet however racist he might seem in retrospect, Taney freed his own slaves, which he had inherited; though he purchased others, he allowed them to earn manumission through work. He also supported repatriation efforts designed to send blacks back to Africa.

Dred Scott Decision. Taney’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford can be traced to his convictions regarding the inherent inferiority of people of color, his previous record as a jurist dealing with the issue of slavery, and his adherence to the doctrines of state rights and limited federal power. Slavery was the single most explosive issue in the nation in 1857, and Taney’s intent in drafting the Court’s opinion was to settle the matter once and for all. He ruled that African Americans could not be citizens of the United States regardless of whether they were slaves or free people and, further, that under the Constitution slaves were property and like all other property could be transported without restriction. Perhaps most significant, Taney struck down the Missouri Compromise and declared that Congress did not have the power to restrict slavery in the Western territories (on the grounds that territories were not yet states). In the wake of Taney’s opinion, which also had the effect of reinforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, legislators in some Northern and Western states passed personal liberty laws to demonstrate their continued belief that any slaves who made it to such areas could remain free.

Later Career. For what remained of his life, Taney could not escape the consequences of Dred Scott. Sen. Charles Sumner declared that Taney’s name would be “hooted down the page of history.” His influence on the Court diminished considerably after 1861. He remained with the Union during the Civil War and attempted, mostly in vain, to uphold the Constitution against some of President Abraham Lincoln’s actions. When Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in April 1861, Taney ruled that the president had acted unlawfully, reminding him of his oath of office and the executive’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Indicative of both the enormity of the secession crisis and Taney’s waning power, Lincoln ignored the bitter and ineffective chief justice. Taney also privately opposed the legality of both the Emancipation Proclamation and conscription. Taney died in Washington, D.C., on 12 December 1864.

Sources

Paul Finkelman, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997);

Charles W. Smith, Roger B. Taney: Jacksonian Jurist (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936).