Roger B. Taney
Roger Brooke Taney (March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the fifth chief justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. Taney delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling that African Americans could not be considered U.S. citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the U.S. territories. Prior to joining the U.S. Supreme Court, Taney served as the U.S. attorney general and U.S. secretary of the treasury under President Andrew Jackson.
Quotes
[edit]- It will be admitted on all hands, that with the exception of the powers surrendered by the Constitution of the United States, the people of the several States are absolutely and unconditionally sovereign within their respective territories. It follows that they may impose what taxes they think proper upon persons or things within their dominion, and may apportion them according to their discretion and judgment. They may, if they deem it advisable to do so, exempt certain descriptions of property from taxation, and lay the burden of supporting the government elsewhere. And they may do this in the ordinary forms of legislation or by contract, as may seem best to the people of the State. ... For it can never be maintained in any tribunal in this country, that the people of a State, in the exercise of the powers of sovereignty, can be restrained within narrower limits than those fixed by the Constitution of the United States, upon the ground that they may make contracts ruinous or injurious to themselves. The principle that they are the best judges of what is for their own interest, is the foundation of our political institutions.
- Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company v. Debolt, 57 U.S. 416 (1853); Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States: December Term, 1853 (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1855) p. 428
- Thank God that at least in one place all men are equal, in the church of God. I do not consider it any degradation to kneel side by side with a negro in the house of our Heavenly Father.
- Attributed in J. A. Walter, "Chief-Justice Taney in Relation to the Dred Scott Case", The Century Magazine, vol. 26, no. 6 (October 1883) p. 958, and in Bernard C. Steiner, Life of Roger Brooke Taney (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Co, 1922) p. 347, footnote
