Roger Brooke Taney
167
Curtis tells us that his opinions would
In this hour of trial, but not of hu militation, as alone and unaided he steered his course true to the oath and duties of his ofice and the noblest tra ditions of his profession, it was not
his associates an opportunity to express
granted to him to foresee that less than six years would pass when the Supreme
their views. If the test of a judge, as Curtis wrote to Story, is his work at m'si pn'us,
Courts of Wisconsin, Indiana and New York,24 and the Supreme Court of the United States in Ex parte Milligan,25 by their decisions would reafiirrn the prin
Taney there united in marked degree the
have been more numerous notwithstand
ing his semi-invalidism, but being ab solutely free from vanity, he gave all
two most essential judicial qualities, an earnest desire to arrive at a just conclu
ciples he unfalteringly had laid down,
sion, with inflexible courage to inforce it. Of the home life of the Chief Justice,
and like him interpose the bulwark of the law, to the end that no citizen of a state not in insurrection and who
and of his friendships much might be said, but the time already taken to bring out important matters without which
was not in military service, should be despoiled of his freedom, or deprived
his entire career cannot be understood or appreciated forbids any extended re view. The death of his wife in 1855,
of his life, except by the judgment of his peers and the law of the land. The long day's work was done. This was his last important decision. The careers of lawyers and judges, however eminent, leave but a fleeting im pression upon the popular mind and memory. A few names may linger,
Webster, Choate and Pinckney, Marshall, Kent and Story still recur in the thought of the people, as connected with the
history of the administration of the law. But with the exception of Kent and Story each of them had entered largely into the political life of their times, while these two by their Commentaries have achieved an enduring place in legal literature. If within this group the name of Taney may be appropri ately included, we must turn to the re ports for the summing up of his judicial
labor. In the twenty-eight years of service he wrote about three hundred
to whom he was tenderly attached, was
the great sorrow of his life.
She died
when he had begun to write his auto
biography, and the affliction so aflected him that he never resumed the work. A devout Christian and a regular com municant of his church, his sympathies were broad, and his personal friends were drawn from all ranks and conditions
of men. To the last he was accustomed to talk about the afiairs of the day with keen interest and large insight. The man who by his personal qualities had gained and kept the afiection of his as sociates, however much some of them
diflered from him on constitutional questions, and the esteem of the leaders
of the bar of the United States, and the good will of the humblest person with whom he came in close personal touch, must have possessed, as all his contem
poraries unite in saying that he did,
opinions, of which it is a pleasure to say only seven were dissents. He difiered in but twenty-six cases from the judg ment of the court, and in these, two or
which made him “in social life . . . at tractive as he was instructive and emi nent in professional life.” His dis
three of his associates concurred. Judge
tinguished and strenuous career closed
M In re Kemp. 16 Wis. 360; Gn'fiin v. Wilcox, 21 Ind. 370: People v. Gaul, 44 Barbour 98. u 4 Wall. 2-142.
Oct. 12, 1864, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
traits of character, with a disposition,
