The Taney Court

Having already served as the subject of one of the key decisions of the Marshall Court, the Second Bank of the United States continued to influence the workings of the Supreme Court years after the McCulloch case. Following Marshall's death in 1836, President Andrew Jackson, a bitter foe of the Bank, nominated Roger Taney (pronounced Taw-ney) to fill Marshall's vacant seat on the Court. Taney had previously served as attorney general and as acting treasury secretary under Jackson, during which time he had helped to weaken the Bank considerably.

Jackson had twice previously sought to reward Taney for his support of Jackson's struggle against the Bank. However, in 1834 the Senate failed to confirm Taney's nomination as treasury secretary, and the following year it rejected Jackson's effort to name Taney as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. After Taney was selected by Jackson in December 1835 to serve as Chief Justice, the Senate took three months to debate the nomination, but Taney was finally confirmed. He went on to serve as Chief Justice for 28 years; only John Marshall occupied the Chief Justice's seat for longer.

The ideological shift away from the Marshall Court was apparent as early as 1837, when Taney authored the majority decision in Charles River Bridge Co. v. Warren Bridge Co. Under Marshall, the need to develop a commercial economy of national scope took priority over the regulatory power of the states, and property rights were regarded almost as inviolable. However, in this case, which concerned a decision by the Massachusetts legislature to charter a free bridge just a few hundred yards away from an existing toll bridge, Taney rejected the claim that the original bridge's charter implied the right to maintain a monopoly on travel across the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge. Property rights were important, wrote Taney, the Democratic appointee, "but we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation."

The Taney Court is most famous -- or infamous -- for its decision in the 1857 case of Dred Scott, which you read about in the Federalism Timeline.

In declaring that Congress lacked the power to limit the expansion of slavery under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Taney Court exercised the power of judicial review for the first time since Marshall had announced this power in the Marbury case more than half a century earlier. Hoping to resolve the slavery debate once and for all, the Court instead kindled the flames of rebellion, and the outbreak of Civil War followed the Dred Scott decision by only four years.

The War Between the States provided Taney with an opportunity to restore the integrity of the Supreme Court, as he attempted to do in his 1861 decision in Ex Parte Merryman, discussed in the Civil Liberties Timeline. Although Abraham Lincoln initially ignored Taney's ruling denying the president's authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, Taney had asserted the need to adhere to the spirit of the Constitution, a spirit notably absent from the Dred Scott decision.