Words that will never die

The Baltimore Sun

In the eyes of the Constitution's framers, black people had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The words are from the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, written in 1857 by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, a Marylander.

Taney did not say he shared this view. But there is evidence in personal letters and legal writing that he did. He was, moreover, a leading member of the American Colonization Society, an organization committed to shipping free blacks back to Africa.

Were it not for Dred Scott, Roger Taney would have been remembered as a man who presided wisely over the further evolution of the nation's system of laws. Dred Scott changed all of that.

Coming as they did in a period of slavery-induced regional tensions, Taney's words probably increased momentum building toward civil war. Biographers have offered a forgiving account of his life. He freed his own slaves, they observe, and provided funds for their care. He is defended also on the basis of his representation of the Rev. Jacob Gruber, an itinerant, abolitionist minister who was arrested for inciting a disturbance during a speech the minister gave outside Hagerstown.

"A hard necessity, indeed, compels us to endure the evil of slavery for a time," the lawyer Taney said. "It was imposed upon us by another nation [England] while we were yet in a state of colonial vassalage. It cannot be easily or suddenly removed. Yet while it continues, it is a blot on our national character; and every real lover of freedom confidently hopes that it will eventually, though it must be gradually, wiped away, and earnestly looks for the means by which this necessary objective may be best attained.

"And until it shall be accomplished, until the time shall come when we can point without blush to the language held in the Declaration of Independence, every friend of humanity will seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and better to the utmost of his power the wretched condition of the slave."

And yet when Taney had an almost unparalleled opportunity to "lighten the galling chain of slavery," he did not. The words of his speech in support of Gruber do not rival the power of his words in Dred Scott. And they have been used over the years as the quintessential expression of white reactionary attitudes toward black Americans.

The current drive to remove a Taney statue from in front of Frederick's City Hall is not the first such effort to show abhorrence of Taney's decision. Several years ago, some state legislators wanted to dismantle or remove a full-length statue of the justice from its perch on the southeast side of the State House in Annapolis. As rendered in this statue, Taney seems burdened by age (he was days short of his 80th birthday when Dred Scott was rendered), by the responsibility of his office and by the history that would cloud his legacy.

The demolition idea was abandoned when guardians of history and pragmatic politicians hit upon a different idea. Why not use the Taney image as leverage? Leave it, but add balance by building a statue of Baltimore's Thurgood Marshall, a Marylander whose life in the law had helped to undo the work of Roger Taney? This compromise was fashioned by Del. Howard P. Rawlings, who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and State Archivist Edward C. Papenfuse.

Their work created sublime historical symmetry, featuring two Marylanders acting a century apart. Taney's decision marked what may be thought of as a low point in the history of civil rights in America. Mr. Marshall, whose life was devoted to correcting this view, would be represented on the other side of the building.

Mr. Marshall got the better of the statuary contest because his is located on what amounts to the people's side of the building.

Mr. Rawlings, an African-American, was pleased with the overall result.

"You want people to be aware of your past and also of your present and your future," Mr. Rawlings said. "We needed Taney to stay where he was to show the dichotomy between Taney and Marshall. With Taney gone, you wouldn't have that."

C. Fraser Smith is senior news analyst for WYPR-FM. His column appears Sundays in The Sun. His book on Maryland's contribution to the civil rights movement, "Here Lies Jim Crow," will be published next spring. His e-mail is fsmith@wypr.org.

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