Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY AND MR. SUMNER.

The aversion with which the extreme anti-slavery men regarded Chief Justice Taney was strikingly exhibited during the session of Congress following his death. The customary mark of respect in providing a marble bust of the deceased to be placed in the Supreme Court room was ordered by the House without comment or objection. In the Senate the bill was regularly reported from the Judiciary Committee by the chairman, Mr. Trumbull of Illinois, who was at that time a recognized leader in the Republican party. The proposition to pay respect to the memory of the judge who had pronounced the Dred Scott decision was at once savagely attacked by Mr. Sumner. Mr. Trumbull in reply warmly defended the character of the Chief Justice, declaring that he "had added reputation to the Judiciary of the United States throughout the world, and that he was not to be hooted down by exclamations about an emancipated country. Suppose he did make a wrong decision. No man is infallible. He was a great, learned, able judge."

Mr. Sumner rejoined with much temper. He said that "Taney would be hooted down the pages of history, and that an emancipated country would fix upon his name the stigma it deserved. He had administered justice wickedly, had degraded the Judiciary, and had degraded the age." Mr. Wilson followed Mr. Sumner in a somewhat impassioned speech, denouncing the Dred Scott decision "as the greatest crime in the judicial annals of the Republic," and declaring it to be "the abhorrence, the scoff, the jeer, of the patriotic hearts of America." Mr. Reverdy Johnson answered Mr. Sumner with spirit, and pronounced an eloquent eulogium upon Judge Taney. He said, "the senator from Massachusetts will be happy if his name shall stand as high upon the historic page as that of the learned judge who is now no more." Mr. Johnson directed attention to the fact that, whether wrong or right, the Dred Scott decision was one in which a majority of the Supreme Court had concurred, and therefore no special odium should be attached to the name of the venerable Chief Justice. Mr. Johnson believed the decision to be right, and felt that his opinion on a question of law was at least entitled to as much respect as that of either of the senators from Massachusetts, "one of whom did not pretend to be a lawyer at all, while the other was a lawyer for only a few months." He proceeded to vindicate the historical accuracy of the Chief Justice, and answered Mr. Sumner with that amplitude and readiness which Mr. Johnson displayed in every discussion involving legal questions.

Mr. Sumner's protest was vigorously seconded by Mr. Hale of New Hampshire and Mr. Wade of Ohio. The former said that a monument to Taney "would give the lie to all that had been said by the friends of justice, liberty, and down-trodden humanity," respecting the iniquity of the Dred Scott decision. Mr. Wade violently opposed the proposition. He avowed his belief that the "Dred Scott case was got up to give judicial sanction to the enormous iniquity that prevailed in every branch of our government at that period." He declared that "the greater you make Judge Taney's legal acumen the more you dishonor his memory by showing that he sinned against light and knowledge." He insisted that the people of Ohio, whose opinion he professed to represent, "would pay two thousand dollars to hang the late Chief Justice in effigy rather than one thousand dollars for a bust to commemorate his merits."

Mr. McDougall of California spoke in favor of the bill, and commented on the rudeness of Mr. Sumner's speech. Mr. Carlile of West Virginia spoke very effectively in praise of the Chief Justice. If the decision was harsh, he said, no one was justified in attributing it to the personal feelings or desires of the Chief Justice. It was the law he was expounding, and he did it ably and conscientiously. Mr. Sumner concluded the debate by a reply to Reverdy Johnson. He said that, in listening to the senator from Maryland, he was "reminded of a character, known to the Roman Church, who always figures at the canonization of a saint as the Devil's advocate." He added that, if he could help it, "Taney should never be recognized as a saint by any vote of Congress." The incidents of the debate and the names of the participants are given as affording a good illustration of the tone and temper of the times. It was made evident that the opponents of the bill, under Mr. Sumner's lead, would not permit it to come to a vote. It was therefore abandoned on the 23d of February, 1865.

HONORS TO TWO CHIEF JUSTICES.

Nine years after these proceedings, in January, 1874, the name of another Chief Justice, who had died during the recess, came before Congress for honor and commemoration. The Senate was still controlled by a large Republican majority, though many changes had taken place. All the senators who had spoken in the previous debate were gone, except Mr. Sumner, who had meanwhile been chosen for his fourth term, and Mr. Wilson, who had been elevated to the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, a more radical Republican than Mr. Trumbull, reported from the Judiciary Committee a bill originally proposed by Senator Stevenson of Kentucky, paying the same tribute of respect to Roger Brooke Taney and Salmon Portland Chase. The bill was passed without debate and with the unanimous consent of the Senate.

Mr. Taney was appointed Chief Justice in 1836, when in his sixtieth year. He presided over the court until his death in October, 1864, a period of twenty-eight years. The Dred Scott decision received no respect after Mr. Lincoln became President, and, without reversal by the court, was utterly disregarded. When Mr. Chase became Chief Justice, colored persons were admitted to practice in the courts of the United States. When President Lincoln, in 1861, authorized the denial of the writ of habeas corpus to persons arrested on a charge of treason, Chief Justice Taney delivered an opinion in the case of John Merryman, denying the President's power to suspend the writ, declaring that Congress only was competent to do it. The Executive Department paid no attention to the decision, and Congress, at the ensuing session, added its sanction to the suspension. The Chief Justice, though loyal to the Union, was not in sympathy with the policy or the measures of Mr. Lincoln's administration.