Biography

The Life of Roger Brooke Taney

From a planter's son in tidewater Maryland to nearly three decades at the head of the United States Supreme Court.

Early years and education

Taney was born in the spring of 1777 into a long-established Maryland family of English Catholic descent that had farmed tobacco in Calvert County since the mid-seventeenth century. As a younger son who would not inherit the family estate, he was directed toward a profession. He proved a diligent student and entered Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1795 while still a teenager. He then read law in Annapolis under an experienced jurist and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1799 — the same year he won a seat in the state legislature.

Building a legal reputation in Frederick

Around the turn of the century Taney settled in Frederick, in western Maryland, where he spent more than two decades building one of the region's most respected legal practices. It was in this period that his life became entwined with that of the Key family: in 1806 he married Anne Key, sister of Francis Scott Key, the lawyer and author of the verses that became the national anthem. Their long marriage produced seven children. Taney, a devout Catholic, and his Episcopalian wife reportedly agreed to raise their daughters in her faith; the couple's only son died in early childhood.

As an advocate, Taney handled a string of prominent criminal and civil matters that carried his name across the state. Among the most noted was his successful 1819 defense of a Methodist minister, Jacob Gruber, who had been prosecuted after preaching an antislavery sermon — a case that, in light of Taney's later jurisprudence, historians often revisit. By the early 1820s he had relocated to Baltimore and broadened his practice, and in 1827 he was elected attorney general of Maryland.

Jackson's confidant: Attorney General and Treasury

Taney's rise to national office came through his alliance with Andrew Jackson. In 1831 the president named him United States Attorney General, and he quickly became one of Jackson's most trusted advisers, even serving briefly as acting secretary of war. He played a central role in the defining economic struggle of Jackson's presidency — the war against the Second Bank of the United States. As Treasury secretary from 1833, Taney carried out Jackson's order to withdraw federal deposits from the bank, a politically explosive act. The Senate, hostile to the move, refused to confirm him, and he left the post in 1834.

Chief Justice of the United States

Jackson did not abandon his ally. When Chief Justice John Marshall died in 1835, the president nominated Taney to succeed him, and after a contentious fight the Senate confirmed the appointment in 1836. Taney thus inherited the seat of the towering Marshall and would hold it for twenty-eight years, a tenure surpassed in length only by Marshall himself.

For much of his career on the bench Taney was regarded as a capable and consequential jurist, guiding the Court on questions of commerce, contracts, and the balance between state and federal authority. That reputation was overshadowed — then and ever after — by his 1857 opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, examined in detail elsewhere on this site.

Final years

Taney remained Chief Justice throughout the Civil War, administering the oath of office to a long line of presidents and clashing with Abraham Lincoln over wartime civil liberties. In frail health for much of his life, he worked on despite recurring illness until he died in Washington in October 1864, at the age of eighty-seven. At his own wish he was buried in Frederick, the city where his career had begun, beside his mother.

For a chronological overview, see the timeline of his life; for the historical setting of his Frederick years, see Frederick, Maryland.