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That's right, capitan. Nevermind what Taney actually did or said. Just quote what somebody else said about him 140 years removed from the fact and pretend that it's irrefutable truth.

As an aside, one has to wonder if Fehrenbacher includes Justice Curtis' memoirs in this so-called "pro-Taney literature." Curtis was a hero of the abolition movement for his dissent in Dred Scott, yet in his memoirs he fully forgave Taney for that decision, which he called the lone flaw in an impeccable career, and praised his judicial ability as one of the strongest to ever occupy a seat on the court.

After 1818, Taney did not seem to bother mentioning his "antislavery" position in the public or private record. The reason being, he was proslavery. By 1832 he had pronounced the most vile sort of racist position. He was not simply supporting the existing law, he was working to establish the Jackson Administration policy on the subject.

Taney 1832: "The African race in the United States even when free, are everywhere a degraded class, and exercise no political influence. The privileges they are allowed to enjoy, are accorded to them as a matter of kindness and benevolence rather than right."

Taney 1857: "[Negroes] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior, that hey 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."

Of the latter statement, Fehrenbacher writes:

"{Taney's] statement that Negroes "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" was part of his analysis of the state of public opinion at the time of the founding of the Republic. He did not declare that such a view still prevailed in 1857; indeed, on the contrary, he implied that public opinion had changed over the years.... Yet the Republican editors who flaunted Taney's explosive words without explaining their context, thereby distorting their literal meaning, were perhaps not entirely wrong in regarding the clause as a fair representation of the tenor of the entire decision. For if Negroes in 1789 had no rights that a white man were bound to respect, and if, as Taney maintained, they had acquired no rights since that time "within the meaning of the constitution." then their condition remained substantially unchanged, from the viewpoint of a federal judge. In 1857, they still had no rights under the Constitution that a white man was bound to respect."

"As an aside, one has to wonder if Fehrenbacher includes Justice Curtis' memoirs in this so-called 'pro-Taney literature.'"

As the book is not a Taney biography, but a history on the case, you should not expect the Curtis remarks to be included. However, Fehrenbacher does note Samuel Tayler, erd., Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, LL.D., (1876) as recording that Curtis delivered "perhaps the most eloquent eulogy." Fehrenbacher also notes that "Curtis, who spent considerable time in wartime Washington arguing cases before the Supreme Court, was also an opponent of the Lincoln Administration. He denounced the Emancipation Proclamation and published a pamphlet [in 1862] accusing Lincoln of assuming dictatorial power." Curtis provides a good example of the phrase, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

[GOPcap #1751] As an aside, one has to wonder if Fehrenbacher includes Justice Curtis' memoirs in this so-called "pro-Taney literature." Curtis was a hero of the abolition movement for his dissent in Dred Scott, yet in his memoirs he fully forgave Taney for that decision, which he called the lone flaw in an impeccable career, and praised his judicial ability as one of the strongest to ever occupy a seat on the court.

32. New York Times, Oct. 14, 1864. The Chicago Tribune said that Taney's "other relations to public and private life have been eminently useful and honorable." The New York Tribune of the same date declared: "He was the product of circumstances which (we trust) will mold the character of no future Chief Justice of the United States; but it were unjust to presume that he did not truly and earnestly seek the good of his country." Taney himself was never as generous in his judgment of Republican motives. In his private relations, however, the Chief Justice seldom allowed political feeling to aflfect his sense of propriety. The member of the Lincoln administration with the highest opinion of Taney was the only one in frequent contact with him, Attorney General Edward Bates, who called him "a model of a presiding officer; and the last specimen within my knowledge, of a graceful and polished old fashioned gentleman." Howard K. Beale, ed., The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859-1866, AHA Annual Report, 1930, IV, 418. Bates was the only member of the cabinet who went to Frederick, Md., for the funeral. Lincoln and three cabinet members attended the brief ceremony held in Washington. Taney's graciousness also won the friendship of the new Republican justices, particularly Samuel F. Miller, who reportedly declared: "Before the first term of my service in the Court had passed, I more than liked him; I loved him." Charles Fairman, Mr. Justice Miller and the Supreme Court, 1862-1890 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 52-53. In bar proceedings taking note of Taney's death, perhaps the most eloquent eulogy was delivered by Benjamin R. Curtis, with whom he had quarreled so bitterly in the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision. See Tyler, ed., Memoir of Taney, 509-16.

Source: Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, page 717, footnote 32.