Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney
November 22nd, 2006
Hat Tip: Soccer Dad and special thanks to Crablaw.
Some clean up from earlier in the week.
November 22nd, 2006
Hat Tip: Soccer Dad and special thanks to Crablaw.
Some clean up from earlier in the week.
Wow, where did this week go?
Earlier in the week, Soccer Dad very kindly called to my attention this link to an article on Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal.
Actually, the piece in the Wall Street Journal, called to my attention by Soccer Dad, is a review by Allen C. Guelzo, of a book by James F. Simon, titled “Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers.”
(I guess I should note that two generations of my wife’s family have earned degrees from Gettysburg College… For more information on Professor Allen C. Guelzo, go here and here…
Professor Guelzo is quite an asset and he works just up the road from all of us. Looking over the material on Professor Guelzo’s work and presentations, I think that I will look forward to traveling up the road a little more frequently in the future to absorb some of his expertise…)
As an historian, I am fascinated with conflicted historical characters and what made them do the things they did. Certainly one of the most complicated, among many complicated historical actors is Chief Justice Taney.
This was wonderfully nice of Soccer Dad to call this article to my attention and I really appreciate it. In a week like this one, I would have missed it.
For those who are also intrigued by Chief Justice Taney, you may wanna take a quick look at Crablaw’s reflection on Chief Justice Taney. And never mind that Taneytown history stuff…, we got that solved… here and here.
Actually, the piece in the Wall Street Journal, called to my attention by Soccer Dad, is a review by Allen C. Guelzo, of a book by James F. Simon, titled “Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers.”
(I guess I should note that two generations of my wife’s family have earned degrees from Gettysburg College… For more information on Professor Allen C. Guelzo, go here and here…
Professor Guelzo is quite an asset and he works just up the road from all of us. Looking over the material on Professor Guelzo’s work and presentations, I think that I will look forward to traveling up the road a little more frequently in the future to absorb some of his expertise…)As an historian, I am fascinated with conflicted historical characters and what made them do the things they did. Certainly one of the most complicated, among many complicated historical actors is Chief Justice Taney.
This was wonderfully nice of Soccer Dad to call this article to my attention and I really appreciate it. In a week like this one, I would have missed it.
For those who are also intrigued by Chief Justice Taney, you may wanna take a quick look at Crablaw’s reflection on Chief Justice Taney. And never mind that Taneytown history stuff…, we got that solved… here and here.
When the Court Lost Its Conscience
The man behind Dred Scott, and his clash with Lincoln.
By Allen C. Guelzo
Mr. Guelzo, the author of "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation," is the director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. You can buy "Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney" from the OpinionJournal bookstore.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
The man behind Dred Scott, and his clash with Lincoln.
By Allen C. Guelzo
Mr. Guelzo, the author of "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation," is the director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. You can buy "Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney" from the OpinionJournal bookstore.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Even the most reasonably literate American may find it difficult to name more than three of the past chief justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. But of those three, one of them will almost certainly be Roger Brooke Taney, the author, in 1857, of the court's most reviled decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Born in 1777 into an Annapolis family that had held land and slaves in Maryland since the 1660s, Taney had what one fellow lawyer, William Pinckney, irritably called the "infernal apostolic manner" of a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But Taney was also a talented lawyer, rising in 1827 to become attorney general of Maryland; three years later, he was named U.S. attorney general by President Andrew Jackson.
It may seem odd to find Taney allied politically with Jackson, the paladin of the American common man. But the Jacksonian democracy was administered by the cream of America's planter aristocracy--and that included Taney. In 1833, Jackson declared political war on the Second Bank of the United States, a fight that was the keystone of Jackson's populist strategy to turn back the tide of the Industrial Revolution in America. And Taney was the only man in the president's cabinet who supported Jackson's move to defund the bank (by withdrawing federal tax-revenue deposits). The attorney general's reward was a Supreme Court nomination in 1834 and confirmation as chief justice in 1836.
Born in 1777 into an Annapolis family that had held land and slaves in Maryland since the 1660s, Taney had what one fellow lawyer, William Pinckney, irritably called the "infernal apostolic manner" of a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But Taney was also a talented lawyer, rising in 1827 to become attorney general of Maryland; three years later, he was named U.S. attorney general by President Andrew Jackson.
It may seem odd to find Taney allied politically with Jackson, the paladin of the American common man. But the Jacksonian democracy was administered by the cream of America's planter aristocracy--and that included Taney. In 1833, Jackson declared political war on the Second Bank of the United States, a fight that was the keystone of Jackson's populist strategy to turn back the tide of the Industrial Revolution in America. And Taney was the only man in the president's cabinet who supported Jackson's move to defund the bank (by withdrawing federal tax-revenue deposits). The attorney general's reward was a Supreme Court nomination in 1834 and confirmation as chief justice in 1836.
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