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Updated: May 26, 2025
It would be easy to bring almost equally plain considerations to bear against the more elaborate argument of Taney that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, but it is enough to say this much: the first four Presidents that is, all the Presidents who were in public life when the Constitution was made had all acted unhesitatingly upon the belief that Congress had the power to allow or forbid slavery in the Territories.
Among those in whom that memory overrode every other passion were Holt, a Southerner and of late the close ally of Davis; Cass, whom Lowell had pilloried as the typical weak-kneed Northerner who suffered himself to be made the lackey of the South; and Taney, who had denied that, in the contemplation of the American Constitution, the Negro was a man.
Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, James Buchanan. Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 198. At Chicago he said that he would vote for the prohibition of slavery in a new Territory "in spite of the Dred Scott decision." Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 20; and see the rest of his speech on the same page.
This decision was the judgment of Roger Taney, whom we have seen at an earlier date as Jackson's Attorney-General and Secretary to the Treasury, in the famous Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was a Negro slave owned by a doctor of Missouri. His master had taken him for a time into the free territory of Minnesota, afterwards bringing him back to his original State.
The first notorious instance occurred in 1861, during the troubles in Maryland, when he authorized military arrests of suspected persons. For the release of one of these, a certain Merryman, Chief Justice Taney issued a writ of habeas corpus . Lincoln authorized his military representatives to disregard the writ.
Taney and his associates were for the most part patriotic men and eminent lawyers, proud of the Court and its history and anxious to add to its prestige. It is regrettable that the merits of some of them have been so obscured and their memory so clouded by a well-meaning but unfortunate excursion into the field of political passions.
These words, now so famous, were spoken in the east portico of the Capitol on "one of our disagreeable, clear, windy, Washington spring days." Most of the participants were agitated; many were alarmed. Chief Justice Taney who administered the oath could hardly speak, so near to uncontrollable was his emotion. General Scott anxiously kept his eye upon the crowd which was commanded by cannon.
The ordinary law would probably have sufficed, and Lincoln is believed to have regretted this action, but it was obvious that he must support it when done. Hence arose an occasion for the old Chief Justice Taney to make a protest on behalf of legality, to which the President, who had armed force on his side, could not give way, and thus early began a controversy to which we must recur.
At this time the Court consisted of five Southern Democrats, two Northern Democrats, one Whig and one Republican. Chief Justice Taney wrote the opinion of the Court, and did it in a manner likely to preserve his name from early oblivion. Judges McLean and Curtis filed dissenting opinions.
It never appeared to better advantage than during these debates. In criticising Mr. Lincoln's attack upon Chief Justice Taney and his associates for the Dred Scott decision, Douglas declared it to be an attempt to secure a reversal of the high tribunal by an appeal to a town meeting.
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