Chronology

Timeline of Roger Brooke Taney's Life

Key dates in the life and career of the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, and a few of the events that followed and undid his most famous ruling.

• 1777Born 17 March in Calvert County, Maryland, into an English Catholic planting family.
• 1795Graduates from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, while still a teenager.
• 1799Admitted to the Maryland bar and elected to the state legislature.
• c.1801Settles in Frederick, Maryland, and begins building his legal practice.
• 1806Marries Anne Phebe Charlton Key, sister of Francis Scott Key.
• 1819Successfully defends minister Jacob Gruber, prosecuted over an antislavery sermon.
• 1823Moves to Baltimore and expands his practice.
• 1827Elected Attorney General of Maryland.
• 1831Appointed United States Attorney General by President Andrew Jackson.
• 1833Becomes Secretary of the Treasury; carries out the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
• 1834The Senate refuses to confirm him as Treasury Secretary; he leaves the post.
• 1836Confirmed as the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, succeeding John Marshall.
• 1837Writes the opinion in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge.
• 1857Delivers the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
• 1861In Ex parte Merryman, challenges President Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus.
• 1864Dies 12 October in Washington, D.C.; buried at his request in Frederick, Maryland.
• 1865The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery.
• 1868The Fourteenth Amendment establishes birthright citizenship, overturning Dred Scott's central holding.

For fuller narrative accounts, see the biography, the Dred Scott case, and his Supreme Court tenure.