Heroic Foe Of Slavery Gaining Recognition and Honor
He was buried in an unmarked grave, a victim who came to represent the nation’s shameful enslavement of African Americans. But Dred Scott is finally being remembered for his heroism in challenging slavery while national monuments to the dark past of slavery are slowly being removed.
For 148 years, visitors to the historic, Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., were greeted by a marble bust of a somber Roger Brooke Taney, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision, the most devastating ruling ever visited upon African Americans, deciding that those who were enslaved would never be free.
The bust sat inside the entrance to the Old Supreme Court Chamber where the high court met from 1810 until 1860. Taney led the court from 1836 to 1864.
Two weeks ago, the Congress voted to remove the blood-stained Taney bust and replace it with a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court. The final vote in Congress came on Dec. 8 but it nearly failed.
Eighteen months earlier, on June 29, 2021, the House voted with 285 lawmakers in favor and 120 Republicans against taking down the grim reminder of a time when racism and slavery ripped the nation apart. Virtually all of the Republican House members voted to keep the statue in place, from Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Rep.Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. and Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. to Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. An earlier version had been considered in the midst of the protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. The House voted 305–113 to remove a bust of Taney but in the GOP-led Senate, the bill died with no action taken.
In his 1857 ruling, Taney decreed, “They [African Americans] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The ruling not only denied African American citizenship but it also rejected congressional authority over slavery in U.S. territories. The decision wasn’t overturned until 1865 and 1870 with passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments.
The abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman, Frederick Douglass, said the high court’s ruling decreed that “slaves are property in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property… that Congress has no right to prohibit slavery anywhere; that slavery may go in safety anywhere under the star-spangled banner; that colored persons of African descent have no rights that white men are bound to respect; that colored men of African descent are not and cannot be citizens of the United States.’’
The historic ruling involved Dred Scott who sued in 1846 for freedom from enslavement. Scott was 50 at the time and had been the property of the Peer Blow family in Virginia. The family moved to St. Louis in 1830, taking Scott with them. Blow soon sold Scott to Irene and Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon who was posted in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
During this period, Scott married Harriet Robinson. John Emerson died in 1842 and on April 6, 1846, the Scotts filed suit against Irene Emerson for their freedom. The Scotts had lived in free territories and had the standing to legally challenge their enslavement. At the time they filed for freedom, the issue considered by the courts was about property rights and not human rights. The case made it to the Supreme Court where Taney ruled against the Scotts, forcing them and untold numbers of enslaved people to remain in chains.
Taney was the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court and the the first Roman Catholic on the court. He served as the chief justice for nearly 30 years beginning in 1836. Taney was born in Maryland and practiced law in Frederick, Md., before becoming chief justice.
The Dred Scott decision became a violently divisive issue in national politics, heightening sectional tensions, with Southerners hailing it as a victory and Northerners violently condemning it.
The outrage in the North over Dred Scott led to the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860, followed by secession and civil war.
Several places and things have been named in honor of Taney, and some have been renamed and some have kept the Taney name, including Taney County, Mo.; the USCGC Taney (WPG-37), which was later renamed; and the World War II, Liberty ship SS Roger B. Taney.
In 1993, the Roger B. Taney Middle School in Temple Hills, Md., was renamed for Justice Marshall.
After the murder of a counter-protestor during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017, Baltimore City voted to remove the Taney Monument on the grounds of the Maryland State House.
For 90 years, Dred Scott laid in unmarked graves at Calvary Cemetery and later Wesleyan Cemetery in St. Louis, Mo. In May, the Mellon Foundation Monuments Project committed $250 million to the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation toward construction of The Dred Scott Memorial Monument at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. The nine-foot-tall black granite monument will include column ornamentation with space for etching, design, the image of Dred Scott and a detailed history.
Taney was appointed to the Supreme Court by Chief Justice John Marshall, another revered jurist whose memory also has come under fire in recent years for his support of slavery and his ownership of slaves. Marshall served on the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, the longest tenure of any chief justice
Two law schools have dropped Marshall from their name and a third, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, is considering changing the school’s name. Cleveland State University College of Law decided in 2020 to change its name from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The University of Illinois Chicago School of Law made the same decision.