[ml/nj]

Go play somewhere else. Taney was considered a great Justice until after Dred Scott And it was only the aftermath of the War of Northern Aggression that changed that.

(FTR, I've never lived south of Long Island, NY, but I've obviously read a lot more history than you have.)

ML/NJ

[BroJoeK]

ml/nj: "Taney was considered a great Justice until after Dred Scott
And it was only the aftermath of the War of Northern Aggression that changed that."

Indeed, one point of this thread is to raise the question: how much was Taney influenced by Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan and how much was just Taney's innate insanity emerging after years of distinguished service?
My guess is the two Democrats but buddies encouraged & enhanced each other's craziness.

We should also notice here that in concurring with Crazy Roger, Justices Nelson & Grier (Democrats from NY & PA) refused to endorse Taney's insane theory that blacks could not be citizens, but instead simply affirmed Missouri's right to declare a slave freed, or not freed.

Finally in his dissent, your fellow New Jersian, Republican Justice McLean (along with Massachusetts' Curtis) noted that, at the time of the Constitution Convention in 1787, five states (including North Carolina) allowed freed blacks to vote.

Add them up: of the five Northern justices, only one -- Buchanan's PA buddy Catron -- concurred in Crazy Roger's insanity.
Of course all four Southern justices concurred.

So any notion that Chief Justice Taney (encouraged by President Buchanan) was anything other than stark raving insane seems to me beyond dispute.

You disagree?

ml/nj: "I've never lived south of Long Island, NY, but I've obviously read a lot more history than you have."

I doubt that, unless you classify Lost Causer mythology as "history".
But speaking of Doughfaced Northerners, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?