Taney, Roger (Brooke) (1777–1864)

US Supreme Court chief justice 1835–64. He is best known for his opinion in the case of Dred Scott versus Sandford (1857), in which he declared that an African-American could not be a citizen and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories. His decision seriously aggravated sectional tensions and made him a target for the new Republican Party. During the Civil War his decisions against several Federal war measures made his impartiality further suspect.

Taney was born into a prosperous landowning family in Calvert County, Maryland, and educated at Dickinson College. He became a barrister in 1799, and then became active in Maryland politics, serving in the state senate 1816–21 and as state attorney general 1827–31. His opposition to the Bank of the United States gained him the favour of President Andrew Jackson, who named him US attorney general 1831–33 and secretary of the treasury in 1833. However, the senate refused to confirm him for the latter post or for his first nomination to the US Supreme Court in 1835. On the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835, Jackson renominated Taney to replace him and the senate confirmed the appointment.