# Roger Taney Roger Brooke Taney (1777–1864) was the **fifth Chief Justice of the United States** (1836–1864) whose 28-year tenure on the Court culminated in the **[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]** decision (1857) — the ruling that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories. The decision is universally regarded as the **worst in Supreme Court history** and is the foundational case for understanding how the Court can be used as an instrument of racial hierarchy. Taney matters for the KB as the **proof that constitutional interpretation is not neutral** — that "originalism," the method of interpreting the Constitution according to the framers' original understanding, has been deployed historically to constitutionalize white supremacy. Taney's Dred Scott opinion was an originalist argument: he claimed the framers never intended Black people to be citizens. The fact that this argument was wrong (Justice Curtis's dissent documented extensive evidence of Black citizenship at the founding) does not diminish its significance as a demonstration of originalism's availability as a tool for hierarchy. ## Background - Born March 17, 1777, in Calvert County, Maryland — into a wealthy slaveholding family - Dickinson College (1795); admitted to the Maryland bar (1799) - Maryland state legislator; Maryland Attorney General (1827–1831) - U.S. Attorney General under [[Andrew Jackson]] (1831–1833) - Served as acting Secretary of the Treasury (1833–34); carried out Jackson's order to remove federal deposits from the [[Second Bank of the United States]] (the Senate refused to confirm his nomination as permanent Secretary) - Nominated as Chief Justice by Jackson; confirmed March 15, 1836 - Served as Chief Justice for **28 years** (1836–1864) — the second-longest tenure after John Marshall - Died October 12, 1864, in Washington, D.C., at age 87 — during the [[American Civil War]] his decision had helped cause ## The Dred Scott Decision Taney's majority opinion in *Dred Scott v. Sandford* (1857) contained three holdings: 1. **Black people are not citizens** and cannot sue in federal court 2. **Residence in free territory** does not make an enslaved person free 3. **The Missouri Compromise** (1820) is unconstitutional — Congress cannot prohibit slavery in territories The opinion's most notorious passage declared that at the time of the Constitution's framing, Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit." **The method:** Taney's opinion was framed as a historical inquiry into the framers' original understanding. He argued that the framers considered Black people an inferior race excluded from the political community. Justice Benjamin Curtis's dissent systematically dismantled this claim, documenting that free Black men voted in at least five of the original thirteen states at the time of ratification — proving that the framers did *not* uniformly exclude Black people from citizenship. ## Legacy ### The Court as Instrument of Hierarchy Taney's Dred Scott decision established a **precedent of function** (if not of law) that the Supreme Court has repeated: - **Dred Scott (1857):** Black people are not citizens - **Plessy v. Ferguson (1896):** "Separate but equal" constitutionalizes segregation - **Korematsu v. United States (1944):** Japanese American internment is constitutional - **[[Shelby County v. Holder]] (2013):** Gutted the Voting Rights Act - **SFFA v. Harvard (2023):** Ended affirmative action In each case, the Court used constitutional interpretation to **protect existing hierarchies** against democratic efforts to dismantle them. ### The Taney Bust Removal A bust of Taney was removed from the grounds of the Maryland State House in 2017 and from the U.S. Capitol's Old Supreme Court Chamber in 2022. These removals are part of the broader Lost Cause reckoning — though Taney himself predates the Confederacy, his decision is the juridical cornerstone of the slaveholding order the Confederacy defended. ## See Also - [[Dred Scott v. Sandford]] — The decision itself - [[John C. Calhoun]] — The intellectual architect of the constitutional theory Taney applied - [[Alexander Stephens]] — Whose "[[Cornerstone Speech]]" echoed Taney's racial hierarchy - [[The Lost Cause]] — The mythology that preserved the racial order Dred Scott constitutionalized