Roger B. Taney

Roger B. Taney was the fifth chief justice of the United States, serving from 1836 to 1864. He wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Dred Scott v. Sandford: The 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied federal citizenship to Black Americans and invalidated Congress’s prohibition of slavery in the territories. Taney wrote the majority opinion, making this case the defining judgment of his tenure.
American Civil War: The 1861–1865 war between the United States and the Confederacy over secession and slavery. The Dred Scott decision sharpened sectional conflict before the war, while Taney challenged Lincoln’s wartime powers.
John Marshall: The fourth chief justice of the United States, whose tenure established strong precedents for federal judicial authority. Taney succeeded Marshall and led a Court that often departed from Marshall’s broad nationalism.
John McLean: A Supreme Court justice from 1829 to 1861 who dissented in Dred Scott v. Sandford. McLean’s dissent rejected Taney’s conclusion that Black Americans could not be U.S. citizens.
Ex parte Merryman: A 1861 federal case in which Chief Justice Taney challenged President Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. Taney asserted that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus, directly opposing Lincoln’s wartime action.
Fourteenth Amendment: The 1868 amendment establishing birthright citizenship, equal protection, and due process limits on state governments. Its Citizenship Clause repudiated Dred Scott’s exclusion of Black Americans from national citizenship.
Andrew Jackson: The seventh president of the United States, who appointed Taney to the Supreme Court in 1836. Jackson’s appointment brought his former attorney general to the Court’s chief justiceship.
Benjamin Robbins Curtis: A Supreme Court justice from 1851 to 1857 who dissented in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Curtis’s dissent challenged Taney with historical evidence that free Black men had held citizenship at the founding.
Ableman v. Booth: A Supreme Court case that upheld federal authority over state resistance to enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Taney’s Court rejected Wisconsin’s attempt to nullify federal fugitive-slave law.
Thirteenth Amendment: The 1865 amendment that abolished slavery throughout the United States, with an exception for punishment after conviction. It abolished the institution whose protection underlay Taney’s most notorious ruling.

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