Chief Justice Roger Taney

...and his questionable contribution to American history

A couple of days ago Bill Gwaltney wrote about the long legacy of the Dred Scott decision and what that case said about America then and maybe now. So today, in an unusual display of continuity and forethought on my part, I thought I’d follow up and tie the Dred Scott case into the conversation over Confederate Monuments which I wrote about back in January. I assume – maybe erroneously – that if a specific individual gets a monument, that somebody or some group thought that the monumentee did something brave or noteworthy or important and therefore deserving of a monument. That’s where Roger Taney comes in.

Bill focused on the Scott case and decision. I’m focusing on presiding Chief Justice Roger Taney. If you read Bill’s piece you may recall that Dred Scott was born a slave in Missouri. Taken to different states and territories by his “Owner,” a Military Surgeon named Sanford, between 1833 and 1843, Scott and his wife found themselves in the free State of Illinois, where slavery was not allowed by law.

Upon being brought back to Missouri, a State where slavery was allowed, Scott filed suit for his freedom, in the hopes that his residence in places where savery was illegal might win his freedom.

Scott lost his suit at the state level. Taking it to the Supreme Court, he and his wife lost again.

The sculpture of Taney was a gift to the City of Baltimore from businessman and art collector William T. Walters. I can find nothing about William, but Judge Taney must have been important to him and to the city that accepted his gift.

But here’s the thing, Judge Taney only accomplished two related things notable enough to have been recorded in the history books. He denied Scott his freedom and then denigrated is standing as a human.

During the Civil War Maryland was solidly pro-Union sending some 60,000 men to fight for the Union Army and in 1861 state lawmakers declined to even consider secession. Yet between 1887 and 1948 Baltimore installed four monuments to the Confederate cause and one to the Union of which they were a part. According to the Baltimore Heritage Project, “The meaning of the works is not limited to what they say about the Civil War but what they say about the racist backlash against Black civil rights in Maryland and throughout the South in the 19th and 20th centuries.”

Baltimore’s first Confederate monument was not to any general or soldier, but to Taney, whose only memorable contribution to the court or to history was that he authored the Dred Scott decision where the court found that the U.S. Constitution held no provisions for the citizenship of Black people. Thus Scott, an enslaved man who had sued for his freedom, had no standing with the court and therefore could not sue.

At the time of Judge Taney’s death in 1864 the NYT Obituary wrote about the judge’s tenure and his Dred Scott decision; “The decision itself was in accordance with the opinion of the majority of the court and was merely to the effect that the Circuit Court of the United States for Missouri had no jurisdiction in the suit brought by the  plaintiff in error. But the Chief Justice went out of his way to indulge in a long and entirely irrelevant dissertation about the estimate which he claimed our ancestors placed upon the negro, and the rights to which he was entitled. In the course of his remarks the Chief Justice took occasion to assert, that for more than a century previous to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, negroes, whether slave or free, had been regarded as "beings of an interior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the White race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the White man was bound to respect;" that consequently such persons were not considered "people" in the general words of that instrument, and could not in any respect be considered as citizens.”

Taney contributed nothing else of note, yet Baltimore decided to honor him with a statue 22 years after the end of the war and smack dab at the height of the Jim Crow era when White Southerners were attempting to terrorize southern Blacks into submission.  

Refusing to grant Scott the standing to sue, declaring negroes so far inferior as to have no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that consequently negroes were not even considered to be people was the important contribution that Taney made that earned him a monument.

The monument to Taney was removed in 2017, but not without resistance. The next time you are privy to a conversation about Confederate monuments and how “they just represent history and nothing more,” mention Judge Taney and his importance to our national history.

We now have over 14,000 readers. Thank you for helping get so far.