Taney, Roger Brooke

taw'ni, Roger Brooke (1777-1864), an American jurist. He was a native of Maryland, a descendant of a prominent Catholic family. He married Anne Key, a Protestant, the sister of Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star-Spangled Banner. He was graduated from Dickinson College in 1795, and opened a law office in Annapolis in 1799. From the first he took an interest in federal politics. He served repeatedly in the state legislature and acquired a large practice before the United States supreme court. As an ardent Democrat he became attorney-general for Maryland. In 1831 President Jackson appointed him to a corresponding position in his cabinet, and later, pleased with his hostility to the United States Bank, made him secretary of the treasury. In this capacity, Taney removed the government's deposits from that institution, but was obliged to retire from office, as the Senate refused to confirm "Jackson's tool." This was the first instance in which the Senate refused to permit a president to choose his own cabinet. Jackson then nominated Taney for associate justice of the supreme court, but he was rejected by the Senate. In 1836, in spite of the stormy opposition of Henry Clay and other Whigs, Taney was nominated again and was confirmed as chief justice to succeed the eminent John Marshall of Virginia.

Taney is credited with having established systematic methods lacking under Marshall. Taney's reputation in United States history, however, is connected largely with the celebrated Dred Scott Decision, in which he enunciated the principle that a slave, being property, could not be a citizen, and that the Missouri Compromise and other acts of Congress limiting slavery were unconstitutional in that they aimed to interfere with property without compensation to the owner; that is, to free a man's slaves within certain territory without paying him for them. As a matter of law, the decision legalized slavery throughout the United States, a predicament from which the country was rescued by the Civil War.

There is every reason to believe that public opinion has been too harsh in passing judgment on Justice Taney. He was a man of unflagging industry, of system, and of integrity. As early as 1819, while trying a case in defense of a Methodist clergyman charged with inciting slaves to turn on their masters, he said, "A hard necessity compels us to endure the evil of slavery for a time: yet while it continues it is a blot on our national character." On another occasion, he spoke of slavery as a reflection on our nation and expressed the confident hope that it would be wiped away effectually. "Until it shall be accomplished, until the time shall come when we can point without a blush to the language held in the Declaration of Independence," he said, "every friend of humanity will seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery and better to the utmost of his power the wretched condition of the slave." In addition he set his own slaves free and started them in the world. Very probably history may decide that the decision, however regrettable, was the only one possible under a strict construction of the Constitution which he had taken oath to protect and obey. In the meantime, he is regarded as one who, in a critical hour, made a decision contrary to the spirit of the age, contrary to the best hopes and aspirations of the nation at large.

See Dred Scott Decision; Missouri Compromise