Political Science Research Paper

According to Dr. Carroll, the following paper carried out these tasks excellently

Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney and Slaves' Rights: A Conflict of Interest

Time often provides the perspective needed to adequately and fairly assess something. Too many men and women have been misunderstood by people who cannot see the real motives behind their actions, whether the misunderstanding stems from prejudice or just not enough knowledge of the facts. Looking back on something with historical objectivity often divulges more information than looking at it at the time of its occurrence. And for years after his reign as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Brooke Taney's decisions on slavery cases and the personal liberty rights of slaves were regarded as the product of a strongly prejudiced mind. Taney did not seem to worry about the way public opinion affected his career, and although he was indeed an honest judge trying to make logical, judicious decisions, these decisions resulted in personal attacks on him, especially in the latter part of his career. His decision on slavery in Scott v Sandford was one of his most famous and it was essentially the decision that tarnished his name as a judge for years after his death. But his views were misinterpreted by many people, and although they could be very easily viewed as the stems of racial prejudice, Taney's personal life reflected none of the atrocities against African-American people that were so common in the mid-1800's. Why would a man make decisions in court cases so completely opposite from his personal opinion? And what were his actual motives in making such decisions? Did his upbringing and the nature of the era have a bearing on his decisions and were these decisions inconsistent and irrational or did the inconsistencies with his personal life result from judicious scrutiny? Because of the focus on Taney's personal views, a look at his early life and career gives insight into the nature of his character.

Roger Brooke Taney was born on the Taney family plantation in Calvert County, Maryland in March 1777. Taney was the sixth-generation descendant of the original Taney, an indentured servant who had settled on the same tract of land in the middle of the seventeenth century. Taney's father grew tobacco on the plantation and, as was common on most plantations at this time, owned slaves. (1) The fact that Taney grew up a white on a plantation with slaves is the first indication that he could have well accepted the morality of the institution of slavery. Seeing something stay established throughout youth is of course the gateway of acceptance.

Taney was educated irregularly in schools and by tutors hired by his father. Since Taney was the second son, he was not in line to inherit any of the family property, so his father pushed him to become a lawyer so he would have a good, steady profession. (2) Taney was a meek person and did not question his father's intentions. He submitted entirely to the wishes of superiors. (3) Thus when he finished his primary schooling, it was accepted without question that he would attend college and he chose Dickinson University in Pennsylvania.

It was in these late years of primary schooling and early years of secondary schooling that Taney developed a deep love for the field of law. Law was the very thing that would give him, a man of meek manner, the medium through which to express himself. Reflecting his shyness and deference to superiors, Taney was very studious, usually reading law 12 hours a day, but his intellectual curiosity was not wide. (4) Complete immersion in his field of study is the main thing that established Taney with a good reputation. He continued to study after schooling by working with a circuit court judge and observing how the field worked firsthand. In 1801, he established practice at the bar in Frederick, Maryland, practicing there for twenty-two years. Communities were still developing in this era of history and law was being rapidly interpreted at this stage which gave those lawyers with good reputations and keen law minds much leeway in the interpretation of constitutional principles. (5)

Throughout the late years of his schooling and the early part of his career, Taney associated with others mainly for the purposes of discussing law. He was not a social person by any means and felt most at home when left to ponder obscure angles of any case he happened to be particularly engrossed in. Taney moved to Baltimore a few years later to try to move up in the ranks of his career. He followed a brief political career that included appointments as Attorney-General of Maryland, Attorney-General of the United States and Secretary of the Treasury. His political career did not fare well as he stirred up opposition by stopping deposits of government funds in the Bank of the United States. Taney had a fear of the Bank and didn't like the moneyed aristocracy he thought it was creating. Because of this, he received much personal attack from the senate and other politicians of the time. There were many supporters of the bank at the time, and they were all bent on Taney's political destruction. (6) These troubles got Taney labeled as some sort of radical, but he was actually an ultra-conservative person who did not trust putting too much power in an institution like the Bank of the United States. Thus stems the first of Taney's mislabelings.

In early 1835, Taney was nominated by President Andrew Jackson to fill a vacated seat on the Supreme Court Bench. As a result of continuing public disfavor, he was rejected by the Senate, although his nomination was supported by Chief Justice John Marshall. (7) When Marshall died in the summer of that year, Jackson continued his support for Taney and nominated him as Chief Justice. Despite the fact that he still had a negative public image, Taney was confirmed as Chief Justice in March of 1836. (8)

Upon arrival in the office of Chief Justice, Taney was quickly faced with questions concerning obligation of contract in the case of Charles River v Warren Bridge in 1837. This is of little consequence to his interpretation of rights of personal liberty concerning slaves, but it is important to his public image after his first couple of years as Chief Justice, something which also had an impact on his later public appearance.

Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge Company had built a toll bridge over the Charles River near its mouth, and after it had been up for some time, people began to be outraged at the price of the tolls to cross the bridge. A new bridge company, the Warren Bridge, was chartered by the state to give some competition to the old one, and eventually, after the new bridge had been paid for, the Warren Bridge was supposed to cease charging tolls.

The stockholders of the old bridge brought suit claiming that the state could not pass a law impairing the obligation of contract to the bridge. They said their charter implied that no competing charters would be granted. (9)

Taney used a simple explanation to set forth the majority opinion of the court. He said simply that their charter did not expressly say that no charters for competing bridges would not be granted and that something like this could not be implied. (10) Taney said, "The whole community are interested in this inquiry, and they have a right to require that the power of promoting their comfort and convenience, and of advancing the public prosperity, by providing safe, convenient and cheap ways for the transportation of produce, and the purposes of travel, shall not be construed to have been surrendered or diminished by the State, unless it shall appear by plain words that it was intended to be done." (11) Essentially, Taney prevented a monopoly here and set the precedent for more cases in this vein. This did not do much for his reputation among his enemies, most of whom were more wealthy people who were now less likely to establish any type of monopoly. Taney's enemies thought he was just preparing for total abandonment of the doctrine that a state could not pass a law impairing the obligation to contract. He was essentially making the rights of private property answerable to the rights of the community. (12) And because of this, Taney was probably viewed by many as a radical, but he wasn't. Taney was so conservative that he was scared of any type of monopolization of power, and rightly so. Most political opponents couldn't conceive of the extent of his conservatism.

Though Taney was conservative in his views when it came to business and banks, he was personally not that conservative on the issue of slavery. As pointed out earlier, he potentially could have easily accepted the institution of slavery since he grew up surrounded by it, but his personal views can best be shown by the fact that he emancipated his own slaves, and even gave pensions to the ones who were too old to work. Taney did not favor sudden emancipation of all slaves, and probably did not believe in complete equality either, but he did support efforts to improve relations between slaves and their masters, specifically, the way the masters treated the slaves. He also supported a system by which slaves could work their way to freedom. (13) Taney did seem to believe that the institution of slavery of another people was a morally despicable thing, but being so conservative, he was not about to do something that would upset the economic base of many communities. The ideas of gradual emancipation seem to favor slow change so not to upset the delicate balance of things. Taney was definitely not a Southern sympathizer of which many people accused him. But he did not let his personal views affect decisions in cases that he felt the law of the era could better decide.

The Taney court got its first taste of dealing with slavery cases early in its first term in 1837. The Supreme Court had already forbidden bringing more slaves to the United States with a statute in the early 1800s. In the case of United States v the Ship Garonne, the court dealt with whether slaves taken out of the country on a trip to France and than returning to the U.S. were to be considered in violation of the court's earlier ruling. (14) Taney, delivering the opinion of the court, held that the earlier statute must be interpreted in light of attempting to end the slave trade and thus it did not apply to bringing slaves back into the U.S. (15) Taney ruled that the same principles decided a similar case, United States v the Ship Fortune. (16) Early in his career Taney appears to be holding to mainstream conservative views of the time about slavery by saying that slaves who leave the country and return still do not have a personal liberty interest.

In 1840, Taney spoke for a unanimous court in an opinion which did somewhat reflect his personal views. Taney held in The United States v Morris that a ship "having on board the usual and peculiar equipments of vessels engaged in the transportation of slaves from the coast of Africa to other places" was enough evidence to convict Isaac Morris for being involved in the slave trade. (17) This was a somewhat unique opinion for the court since the majority of its opinions during this time were not in favor of slaves. But it is more in line with what Taney seems to have privately believed. The conviction here, though, stemmed from the fact that the case was dealing with someone still actively involved in the slave trade. Since bringing more slaves to America was illegal, Taney rendered a decision that was the earliest sign that slavery wouldn't last. This is right in line with Taney's idea of slow change, not quick freedom.

In Prigg v Pennsylvania in 1842, the Taney court dealt with its first case on fugitive slave laws. The question the court had to resolve was whether Prigg, a man sent from Maryland into Pennsylvania to capture a fleeing slave, had kidnapped the slave when he had taken her and her child back to Maryland without authorization by a magistrate of the state of Pennsylvania. (18) Mr. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court and said that Pennsylvania's accusation of kidnapping was invalid because it interfered with the enforcement of the federal Fugitive Slave Law. Taney concurred, saying that although he disagreed with some parts of Story's decision, the Fugitive Slave Law assumed the cooperation of state officers and would be ineffective without it. (19) He said, "The delivery of the property itself -- its prompt and immediate delivery -- is plainly required, and was intended to be secured." (20) So the court dealt solely with slaveowners' rights here and not with any rights of slaves. Despite what he might have believed personally, Taney dealt with the slave only in his existing condition: slavery. It was obvious that he wasn't ready to break any boundaries in this area yet. He probably didn't think the country could handle it.

In the 1851 case of Strader v Graham, the court dealt again with fugitive slaves, but this time decided whether Strader owed money for helping three slaves in Kentucky escape to Ohio. The slaves were musicians and had previously travelled to Ohio to perform. Strader claimed that because they had been taken into a free state with their owner's consent, they were indeed free. (21) Taney, speaking for the court, rejected this because the slaves had voluntarily returned to their home state of Kentucky and were thus subject to Kentucky's laws. According to Taney, the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction and thus Strader was guilty according to Kentucky law of helping slaves to escape. (22) This decision seems to move a little more into the realm of whether slaves do have rights because it deals with the issue of whether these slaves were free by virtue of their trip to Ohio, but Taney sticks to his conservative guns. Despite this, the impression Taney gives in this case, as in many others, is that he is genuinely compelled to interpret the laws of the time as fairly as he could and not to break ground with his personal opinions.

In the 1852 decision of Moore v Illinois, the court's position on fugitive slave laws as interpreted by Prigg v Pennsylvania was once again upheld. Justice Grier, with whom Taney concurred, said that states could not interfere with the recovery of slaves under the Fugitive Slave Laws. (23) Grier said, "...any state law or regulation which interrupts, impedes, limits, embarasses, delays or postpones the right of the owner to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service, is void." (24)

In 1856, the case of United States v Booth came before Taney's court. It involved fugitive slave laws once again, and the case's question was whether Booth had aided the escape of a slave from a deputy -- Marshall. Taney decided that the case bore so much similarity to another case that it would be held off to be tried in conjunction with the other one. (25) It would be 1859 before a decision was issued. This left Taney to face the 1857 case of Dred Scott v Sandford, the case that would tarnish his image for years.

Dred Scott was a slave taken by his master from Missouri to Illinois and than back to Missouri again. Upon arrival back in Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom claiming that his trip to Illinois had made him a free man because of the Missouri Compromise, a provision that banned slavery above the 36th parallel in the United States. He claimed that because he went to free territory, he was a free man. Taney issued the main question asked of the court, which he said was, "can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen." (26) The court also asked whether the Congress of the United States can exclude slavery in the territories of the Union. (27) Taney, delivering the opinion of the court, said that African-Americans were not intended to be citizens of the United States and they cannot claim the rights as such. He also declared the Missouri Compromise illegal because it denied slaveowners the rights to their property without due process above the 36th parallel. The decision was based on the fact that when the constitution was formed, African-Americans were property just as much as any other goods, and when they fled their owners, states were bound by law to return them. Taney said, "...the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general works used by that memorable instrument." (28) This confirmed that Taney would be the recipient of much criticism for years to come.

With North/South tensions in full force at the time and the country on the verge of civil war, it is no wonder that Taney was repeatedly condemned by abolitionists and free soilers in the North. But Taney was by no means a pro-southern sympathizer and the freeing of his own slaves showed that Taney did not believe in the morality of slavery. But in years to come, people didn't hear about what Taney did with his personal slaves. They just knew what his decision in the Scott case had done, and by all standards, it was indeed not a pleasant decision. But Taney made his decision from scrutiny of the laws of his time and the constitution and tried to arrive at a rational answer. There can be no other explanation since he clearly was not a personal advocate of slavery.

One reason for the condemnation of Taney's decision was that he happened to be the first justice to deal with a slavery question of this magnitude. Other justices had successfully avoided such universal questions on slavery, and it appears that Taney really didn't consider the consequences of what a decision in either direction might be. (29) Taney's love of the judicial system made him tackle the case with reckless abandon as to what the consequences on his personal reputation might be. But this seems an admirable thing for a judge, since that is what they are supposed to do. It has taken over 100 years to prove this, but Taney was doing the duty that he was sworn to do, and used the proper channels to do it, despite the fact that the decision was not in line with modern standards.

Taney continued his unpleasant task in light of all the public criticism he was receiving in 1857 in Ableman v Booth, the continuation of the case of United States v Booth. Taney delivered the opinion of a unanimous court, saying that Booth was indeed guilty of aiding a fugitive slave escape. (30) Taney expected this decision to attract even more attention after the Scott decision, but it was just seen as an extension of that decision, and the Scott case remained the precedent case on slavery. (31)

In the 1862 case of Ex Parte Gordon, the Taney court dealt with the illegality of the slave trade again in a case similar to United States v Morris. The court heard an appeal from Nathaniel Gordon, who had been convicted after his ship had been found carrying about 900 African-Americans to Cuba. The court upheld the conviction in the same vein as the Morris case. Taney delivered an opinion for a unanimous court, saying that the Supreme Court could not go beyond the decision of the Circuit Court because there was no certificate of division of opinion. (32) That is the technical side of it, and Taney once again correctly interpreted the laws. But this case shows that Taney did not put up with violations of the already outlawed slave trade.

Despite the fact that Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in favor of slaves in only two of these cases, Taney was definitely no advocate of slavery. He seems to have done what he could in light of the existing laws, and without radically breaking any new ground. This is right in line with his character. Taney as a young man was shy, studious, but not overly intellectual. But he was a man of moral principle, and this comes through not only in the fact that he spent days of solitude reviewing laws and cases to come to fair and just decisions, but by the fact that he himself did not believe in the morality of the slave industry. Taney's disbelief in the morality of slaves can best be shown by an incident reported in a letter by Taney's pastor at the church he attended. When waiting for his turn at the confessional, Taney would wait outside with the other people, the majority of whom were black, for his turn for admission. The pastor said he invited Taney to skip the crowd and enter through a side door, but Taney said he would not deviate from the established custom. (33)

Taney did make anti-slavery decisions in cases concerning people actively involved in the slave trade, and this was clearly illegal as set forth by the Supreme Court in the early 1800s. These were clearly judicial decisions based on the previous decision. And it is not presumptuous to assume that Taney hoped that these would slowly set precedence for more groundbreaking cases against the institution of slavery. But at that time, Taney had to work with the laws as they were set forth before the institution of slavery had come into question. His breach in other decisions with his personal opinion is one of the reasons Taney has been so misinterpreted and condemned through the years. Most of Taney's other decisions reflect the attitudes of a pro-slavery man, and in light of the breach with his personal opinions, they were probably very hard decisions for him to make, much less announce. But he arrived at them from strict study of laws and the constitution, and regardless of the fact that they are hard decisions to put any faith in, they must be respected for the work he put into them.

NOTES

1. Kenneth Bernard Umbright, Our Eleven Chief Justices (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1938), 201-2.

2. Robert J. Steamer, Chief Justice: Leadership and the Supreme Court (Columbia, S.C.: University of S.C. Press, 1986), 99.

3. Umbright, 204-5.

4. Ibid, 206.

5. Jesse H. Choper, The Supreme Court and Its Justices (Chicago, Ill.: The American Bar Association, 1987), 54.

6. Walker Lewis, Without Fear or Favor (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965), 231-2.

7. Bernard C. Steiner, Life of Roger Brooke Taney (Baltimore, Md.: Williams and Wilkins Col., 1922), 179.

8. Ibid, 182.

9. Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420 (S.C. 1837), 773-4.

10. Umbright, 231.

11. Charles, 825.

12. Felix Frankfurter, The Commerce Clause under Marshall, Taney and Waite (Chicago, Ill.: Quadrangle Books, 1937), 71.

13. Steiner, 376-7.

14. U.S. v the Ship Garonne, 11 Pet. 73 (S.C. 1837), 637.

15. Carl B. Swisher, The Taney Period: 1836-64 (New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974), 534-5.

16. Garonne, 639.

17. U.S. v Morris, 14 Pet. 464 (S.C. 1840), 548.

18. Prigg v Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539 (S.C. 1842), 1062.

19. Carl Brent Swisher, Roger B. Taney (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1961), 422-3.

20. Prigg, 1094

21. Swisher, Roger B. Taney, 484-5.

22. Strader v Graham, 10 How. 82 (S.C. 1851), 343.

23. Swisher, The Taney Period, 588-9.

24. Moore v Illinois, 14 How. 13 (S.C. 1852), 309.

25. U.S. v Booth, 18 How. 476 (S.C. 1856), 465.

26. Ben W. Palmer, Marshall and Taney: Statesmen of the Law ( Minneapolis, Minn.: Oxford University Press, 1939), 183.

27. Samuel Tyler, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney (New York, Ny.Y.: De Capo Press, 1970), 360.

28. Scott v Sandford, 19 How. 393 (S. C. 1857), 701.

29. Swisher, The Taney Period, 605.

30. Ableman v Booth, 21 How. 506 (S.C. 1859), 170-1.

31. Swisher, The Taney Period, 665.

32. Ibid, 703-4.

33. Umbright, 210.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Ableman v Booth, 21 How. 506 (S.C. 1859).

2. Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420 (S.C. 1837).

3. Choper, Jesse H. The Supreme Court and Its Justices. Chicago, Ill.: The American Bar Association, 1987.

4. Frankfurter, Felix. The Commerce Clause under Marshall, Taney and Waite. Chicago, Ill.: Quadrangle Books, 1937.

5. Ex Parte Gordon, 1 Black 140 (S.C. 1862).

6. Lewis, Walker. Without Fear or Favor. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965.

7. Moore v Illinois, 14 How. 13 (S.C. 1852).

8. Palmer, Ben W. Marshall and Taney: Statesmen of the Law. Minneapolis, Minn: Oxford University Press, 1939.

9. Prigg v Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539 (S.C. 1842).

10. Scott v Sandford, 19 How. 393 (S.C. 1857).

11. Steamer, Robert J. Chief Justice: Leadership and the Supreme Court. Columbia, S.C.: Press, 1986.

12. Steiner, Bernard C. Life of Roger Brooke Taney. Baltimore, Md.: Williams and Wilkins Co., 1922

13. Strader v Graham, 10 How. 82 (S.C. 1851).

14. Swisher, Carl Brent. Roger B. Taney. Hamden, Conn.; Archon Books, 1961.

15. Swisher, Carl B. The Taney Period: 1836-64. New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974.

16. Tyler, Samuel. Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney. New York, N. Y.: De Capo Press, 1970.

17. Umbreit, Kenneth Bernard. Our Eleven Chief Justices. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1938.

18. U. S. v Booth, 18 How. 476 (S.C. 1856).

19. U.S. v Morris 14 Pet. 464 (S.C. 1840).

20. U.S. v the Ship Garonne, 11 Pet. 73 (S.C. 1837).

-- David Simpson

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