The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

V

We are not concerned with the Roger B. Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision, but with that portion of his career, little known and appreciated, which convinced Jackson that he was worthy of wearing the mantle of John Marshall. And that is by far the most dramatic phase of his life—his battling years. Born and reared on a Maryland plantation, among horses and slaves, he grew up to be an independent, self-reliant youth. At Dickinson College he refused to take down a portion of a lecture which assailed our republican governmental system. As valedictorian of his class he suffered torments from a morbid fear of public speaking. Thus even as a student he was independent in thought, courageously devoted to his convictions, brave in battle, but miserably self-conscious on parade.

On graduating, he returned to the woods and fields of the plantation, abandoned his books, and gave himself up to the joys of fox-hunting, leading the life of the old-fashioned English country gentleman. When he took up the study of law in Annapolis, however, he abandoned this outdoor life in turn, and, declining all social invitations, devoted himself to his studies, and to fighting his native timidity, in a debating society. Here also he studied the methods of two of the Nation’s greatest advocates, Luther Martin and William Pinkney.

And, strangely enough, this great lawyer in the making, began the practice of the law as a side issue to politics. In the quiet rural community of his nativity, where there was little litigation and no opportunity for professional distinction, he settled, for the sole purpose of entering the House of Delegates. This, however, in compliance with the wishes of his aggressively Federalistic father. Thus, at the age of twenty-two, we find young Taney responding to the roll-call as a pronounced Federalist of the school of Hamilton. It is noteworthy that he was defeated in the next election because of the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800.

This setback changed the course of his career. An uncompromising Federalist with Federalism apparently dead, politics no longer promised a future, and he turned now to the serious consideration of the law, and located at Frederick where the Democrats were overwhelmingly predominant. In this community, rich, intellectual, cultured, and hospitable, he instantly took his place among the leaders of the bar and entered upon a lucrative practice. A Federalist from principle, he did not hesitate, when called to lead the forlorn hope. As a Federalist, he opposed the War of 1812. Up to this point his political career was similar to that of Webster.

And it is in the divergence of the two careers at this point that the future of Taney turned. He fought the war until the die was cast, and then threw himself with intense fervor into the support of his country against the foreign foe. Contemptuous of the disloyalists of his political family, he summoned the Federalists to the unqualified support of the American arms, and such was his prestige that a large portion of the party in Maryland followed his lead.[331] By subordinating party to country, he all but obliterated party lines, and when he was nominated for Congress as a war Federalist he all but wiped out the normal Democratic majority. Had he gone to Washington at that time as a lone Federalist supporting the war, to face Webster, fighting the organization of the army and the appropriations, his national reputation would have come eighteen years before it did. For his was no half-hearted hate of the disloyalty of his party co-workers. This is the first decisive action upon which an interpretation of his political character may be predicated.

Meanwhile, restricting himself more and more to his profession, frequently associated with Luther Martin in the most important litigation, his reputation spread throughout the State, and the politician was merged with the lawyer. It was in connection with one of his most sensational cases that he took a position on slavery and the right of abolitionists to be heard that throws a high light on his character and courage.

An abolitionist minister from Pennsylvania had gone to Maryland and made a ferocious attack on slavery in a public meeting attended by some slaves. The excitement and feeling against him were intense. To the sensitive slave-owners the speech seemed a deliberate incitation of the slaves to insurrection. The minister’s life was in danger. It required supreme courage for a Maryland lawyer in that slave-holding community to stand between the abolitionist and the popular clamor against him, and Taney stepped from the professional ranks to plead his cause, not perfunctorily, but with a passionate defiance worthy of the highest traditions of his profession. He made his defense on no less grounds than “the rights of conscience and the freedom of speech.” And he spoke on slavery even as Garrison or Lincoln might have spoken. In a courtroom crowded with slave-owners who were his neighbors, he touched boldly on the pathos and the tragedy of the institution. After this daring defense before a slave-holding jury, the hated abolitionist was acquitted—and the records of the American courts record no nobler triumph.

The death of Pinkney and the disqualification of Martin soon advanced Taney to the head of the Maryland bar. It was one year after he had established himself in Baltimore that he first allied himself with the supporters of Andrew Jackson. During the campaign of 1824 was published a letter written by Jackson to Madison seven years before, urging the recognition of those Federalists who had broken with their party to support the War of 1812, and suggesting the name of Colonel Drayton of South Carolina.[332] Discriminating between the anti-war Federalists and the pro-war Federalists, Jackson here declared that had he been commander of the military department in which the Hartford Convention was held, he would have court-martialed the three leaders of the Convention. This announcement of his views had attracted to his standard many pro-war Federalists of Maryland, and the most notable acquisition was Roger B. Taney. He was impelled to his course with no thought of political reward. His whole mind and heart were in his profession. Jackson knew nothing of Taney’s partiality at the time, and only learned of it about the time he was seeking a successor for Berrien. At no time in his life had the Maryland lawyer been so thoroughly satisfied with his lot. He had been made Attorney-General of the State on the unanimous recommendation of the bar, and this was the only office to which he ever aspired. It was in line with his work and left him at home with his family and his books. Such was his situation, when, through a non-political suggestion, he was offered the position in the Cabinet of Jackson.

At this time he was in his fifty-fourth year, with no taste for the trickery and intrigues of politics, and he asked nothing better for his leisure hours than meditative tramps through the woods, a canter on his horse, a volume of poetry or history, or the delights of his home, presided over by the sister of the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An ardent Catholic, he was strict in the observance of his religious duties. Always vehement in his views, and uncompromising in his convictions, he was almost unpleasantly decisive in the expression of his political opinions. Such was his lofty conception of official propriety that while in office he was to refuse to accept the slightest token of appreciation from people with whom he had official relations.[333] He had all the courtesy and courtliness of his culture, all the caution of the painstaking lawyer, and all the circumspection of the man jealous of his honor. He was to become the most virile assistant of Jackson in the bitterest fight of his Presidency, the most trusted of his Cabinet, because the most like Jackson in the vigor of his blows.