Roger B. Taney

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Lore & Background

Chief Justice Taney wrote the 7–2 majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, issued in March 1857. In it, he ruled that people of African descent 'are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.' He supported his ruling with a survey of state and local laws from 1787 that he said showed a 'perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery.' Taney also struck down the Missouri Compromise, ruling that it interfered with slave owners' property rights under the Fifth Amendment. Although Taney and several other justices hoped the decision would settle the slavery controversy, it only exacerbated interstate tension. The decision inflamed the national debate over slavery and deepened the divide that led ultimately to the American Civil War. In 1865, after the Union's victory, the ruling was superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, and later by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States.

Reader's Guide

Roger B. Taney's significance rests primarily on his role as chief justice and author of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which is widely considered the worst Supreme Court decision ever made. That ruling declared that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, deepening national divisions and strengthening the anti-slavery Republican Party. As chief justice, he shifted the Court toward states' rights but did not fully reject federal authority. During the Civil War, Taney clashed with President Lincoln over executive power, particularly in Ex parte Merryman, where he held that the president could not suspend habeas corpus. Taney's legacy remains controversial; he is remembered for a ruling that inflamed the slavery debate and for his opposition to Lincoln's wartime measures. At his death, he was widely reviled in the North, and Lincoln declined to make a public statement.

Did You Know?

• Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes called the Dred Scott decision the Court's 'greatest self-inflicted wound.'
• Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said Dred Scott 'stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions.'
• Taney's majority opinion struck down the Missouri Compromise as interfering with slave owners' property rights under the Fifth Amendment.
• The Dred Scott decision was superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
• Taney's ruling held that African Americans were not entitled to 'full liberty of speech ... to hold public meetings ... and to keep and carry arms.'