The Death of Taney

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/the-death-of-taney/ ^ | October 15, 2014 | Timothy S. Huebner

[iowamark]

On Oct. 12, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln must have breathed a bit easier.

Not because the war was over — it would last another six months. Not because he had been re-elected — the election remained nearly a month away. And not because Gen. William T. Sherman had begun his decisive march through Georgia — the general was still holding Atlanta. While much remained unsettled, Lincoln’s achievements as president seemed more secure that autumn day because the president learned that his old nemesis Roger B. Taney, the Maryland-born chief justice of the Supreme Court, had died.

Ever since Taney had handed down the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, he and Lincoln had been bitter rivals. Taney was a well-known defender of slavery, a bias he showed most famously in that case, when the court attempted to resolve, once and for all, the contentious issue of slavery in federal territories. Taney and six other justices had done so by ruling squarely on the side of slaveholders; according to Taney, slaveholding was a constitutional right, one with which neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could interfere.

Lincoln, who by then had served in Congress but was now back in Illinois, working as a politically active lawyer, disagreed strongly with the decision, and his opposition to Dred Scott fueled his political rise in the North. When he ran for Congress the next year, he debated the matter fiercely with his Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas. Lincoln strongly implied that Taney, Douglas and other leaders had conspired to spread slavery throughout the land. And in 1860, Lincoln ran on a Republican Party platform that denounced the Dred Scott ruling as “a dangerous political heresy.”...

[ifinnegan]

History is amazing.

[iowamark]

NY Times October 14, 1864: “DEATH OF CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY”

http://www.nytimes.com/1864/10/14/news/death-chief-justice-taney-obituary-notice-proceedings-courts-honors-his-memory.html
“”Mr. TANEY took his seat on the Supreme Bench in January, 1837. His name will be chiefly associated with the famous decision in the case of “DRED SCOTT,” which has gained special prominence from its bearings on some of the most important political issues of the age. 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 included “people” in the general words of that instrument, and could not in any respect be considered as citizens; that the inhibition of slavery in the territories of the United States lying north of the line of 30 degrees and 30 minutes, known as the Missouri Compromise, was unconstitutional...””

[sauropod]

.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Maryland “Freak State” PING!

[VeniVidiVici]

Attended a kids soccer game in Taneytown (pronounced ‘tinytown’) just a few weeks ago. I’ll have to go back and see if this guy has any tributes.

[allendale]

The final irony was that it wasn’t long that Lincoln joined Taney and over 650,000 other Americans.

[lentulusgracchus]

He was Andrew Jackson’s main man in Jackson’s cage fight to the death with Nicholas Biddle and his Second Bank of the United States (kind of a private-label Yankee Fed).

[re_nortex]

I get a mixed message here on FR about Old Hickory from some astute FReepers. There was a thread recently depicting Jackson in a very bad light stemming from him being a Democrat. See the multipart series titled “The ugly history of the Democrat Party”. From the Texas board, you know the respect I have for you (and your impressive command of the vocabulary). So how to you size up Andrew Jackson?

[lentulusgracchus]

On a real computer, not an Android keypad. Better reply later. 😆

[Tucker39]

Begging your pardon, but locals pronounce it Tah-nee-town. Funny how these things work.

Like the county and city in south central PA which furriners pronounce, Lan-cass-ter, eliciting polite snickering from the locals; who have always pronounced it “Lank-uster”.

[Celtic Conservative]

Recent comments from modern historians have said that number is too conservative and the true total is probably closer to 3/4 million.

CC

[BroJoeK]

"Like the county and city in south central PA which furriners pronounce, Lan-cass-ter, eliciting polite snickering from the locals; who have always pronounced it 'Lank-uster'."

Lan-cass-ter, New York is pronounced the same as Lan-cass-ter, England and the old bomber of that name.

[BroJoeK]

"Recent comments from modern historians have said that number is too conservative and the true total is probably closer to 3/4 million."

K.I.A. -- killed in action (215,000) is a much smaller number than "died as a result of the war", which includes every manor of war related deaths, from illnesses to injuries which didn't kill outright, but shortened lives significantly.

Indeed, it is sometimes claimed that the Civil War "killed millions" -- claims supported only by noting a significant slowing in the rate of growth of US population during that decade.
With men away at war, fewer babies were born, more died in fancy, more older people died sooner from lack of care, etc., etc.

[BroJoeK]

re nortex: "I get a mixed message here on FR about Old Hickory from some astute FReepers."

There's nothing "mixed" about the message from many FReepers regarding "Ole Hickory" -- he is loathed and despised by our Lost Causers second only to Lincoln himself, and for understandable reasons.

Jackson was the last of the Founding generation to become President, and despite his birth in the Carolinas and life in Tennessee, Jackson was first and last a Union man.
Whether the issue was tariffs, nullification or secession, Jackson came down on the side of Union, telling South Carolinians in 1830:

"please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach."

For that, our Lost Causers leave no tree unhung with effigies of Jackson and Lincoln...

[X Fretensis]

Several years ago, I read an article is an issue of the Civil War Times Illustrated. The Article dealt with President Lincoln signing an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Taney). The Chief Justice was issuing writs of Habeas Corpus to Maryland legislators arrested but not charged by the Lincoln Administration. Lincoln was mad as hell with Taney for this. He signed the arrest warrant and told the magistrate to not act on it until Lincoln told him to do so. I do not recall the issue the article appeared in. Imagine the political fall out if the President had arrested the Chief Justice.

[iowamark]

The arrest warrant story is unlikely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taney_Arrest_Warrant

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CE8QFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bu.edu%2Fhistoric%2Fconf2012%2FMagness.doc&ei=fe5AVPfLBIeT8gGZh4DQBA&usg=AFQjCNEifU_GhnEBuET0tdklxtYzDQFaDw&bvm=bv.77648437,d.b2U

[gusopol3]

I think it’s a poor article which fails to highlight Taney’s judicial activism in striking down the Missouri compromise of 1820 as a superfluous expansion of his opinion on Dred- Scott. My understanding from reading Jaffe is that it was the first use of judicial review since Marbury vs. Madison.

[SES1066]

In terms of history, it is always interesting to see how individuals change history and members, especially, Chief Justices, of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) are definite 'game changers!'

No Chief Justice to date has come anywhere close to unseating John Marshall (1755-1835) as the greatest and most influential CJ ever on SCOTUS yet it was his death that opened the vacancy that Roger Taney filled. Taney's reputation, even before Dred Scott, suffers much by the comparison.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Actually it is like Tawney town.

Common know,edge here plus I have 2 relations that have lived there quite a while.

I never understand that pronunciation. I cannot resist to say it exactly as it appears.