receive a peculiar mark of indignity. The most unsparing efforts have been made to impeach the integrity of my motives." He knew that his course would cost him dear. But perhaps even he could not have antici pated the scurrility and venom of the at tacks which were actually made upon him, not only by newspapers and obscure poli ticians, but by great men like Clay and Webster. These latter pursued their abuse and hostility, even to doing their utmost to defeat him when nominated to places upon the Supreme Court. But it is a remarkable tribute to Taney's character and ability that he lived to enjoy the felicity of a personal apology from Clay, and of an intimate official relationship with Webster, who constantly sought the advice of the Chief Justice on matters of state. Mr. Justice Duvall, before whom, when judge of the Mayor's Court of Frederick, Mr. Taney tried his first case, was anxious to resign his seat upon the bench. He was afraid, however, lest Jackson, whose politics he hated, would nominate in his place a bitter partisan. Having discovered that the Presi dent would send Mr. Taney's name to the Senate for the first vacant place in the Su preme Court, he resigned in January, 1835. Jackson immediately nominated Taney, and Mr. Chief Justice Marshall interested himself to procure a confirmation of the nomination. This fact alone is sufficient and striking testimony of Taney's fitness for the place. The majority of the Senate were at that time so uncompromisingly hostile to Jackson and Taney that it was inevitable that the nomi nation should be rejected, and at the last moment of the session its consideration was indefinitely postponed. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, however, died in the summer of 1835, and on the twenty-eighth day of December the President nominated Mr. Taney to the Chief Justiceship and Judge Barbour to the vacant place of Associate Justice. Taney's nomination was confirmed on March 15, 1836. He first took his seat on the bench in the Circuit Court for the district of Maryland, at Baltimore, in April,
and it was not until the following January term of the Supreme Court that he sat upon the Supreme Court bench. From that time until his death, on October 12, 1864, he per formed the high functions of his office with an ability and a gracious dignity that have seldom been equalled. His great veneration for the law and his high ideals of the judicial attributes and bearing, his great learning, his patience and his painstaking accuracy made him in many ways a great judge. Fol lowing as he did after so perfect a magistrate as Marshall it would be impossible for him or any man not to be injured by the in evitable comparison. With the exception, however, of Marshall, there can be no doubt that Taney was the greatest Chief Justice of the United States, as he was one of the greatest magistrates in the history of English-speaking peoples. The twentyeight years of his administration were not marked by such an uniform development as were the thirty-four years of the court under Marshall. That this was due primarily to the fact of the change in the times and ideas, and not to any inherent weakness in the Chief Justice, I have already tried to indi cate. But I fear that this is all that can bo said with truth. There looms one blot upon his career that cannot be erased, and almost obscures a multitude of virtues. It would be a task of supererogation to enter here upon an extended notice or criti cism of Mr. Chief Justice Taney's opinions. I wish briefly to call attention only to four phases of his judicial career which seem to me to have been of the greatest value to jurisprudence and the greatest monument to his fame. When he came to the court the rules of practice were in a strangely amorphous state. It is one of his glories that he straightened, systemized and settled them upon a basis from which all subsequent rules have arisen. This was no small work, and to him is due no small praise. His train ing and the peculiar quality of his mind pre eminently qualified him for the successful accomplishment of this task. The law with regard to the citizenship of
