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 152

The Green Bag

dence, Roger Brooke Taney, his suc

he could follow the chase through a

cessor, who held office for twenty-eight

long day's hunt.

years, not only continued the founda tions but profoundly inﬂuenced the superstructure. Born in Calvert county, Maryland, on March 17, 1777, his

of his life as they appear in "Tyler's Memoir,” I am unable to ﬁnd that he ever sought recreation from the cares of his profession in the solution of diﬁicult

maternal ancestors were of English descent, while on his father's side the Taneys were among the ﬁrst settlers of

problems in mathematics, or engaged in scientiﬁc pursuits as a solace or avoca

the state where they owned large landed

legal profession, in 1796 he began his

estates, which by descent became the

studies at Annapolis in the office of

home of the future Chief Justice. To be the head of this tribunal, which from a position of feebleness had now ad

Chief Justice Chase of the Maryland Court of Sessions.

tion.

In the authentic facts

Having been destined for the

The bar of Maryland at that time, among other distinguished men, num

vanced under Marshall's guidance to a place of almost overshadowing power,

bered in its ranks Luther Martin, Wil

the new Chief Justice was called at the age of ﬁfty-eight. What were his quali

liam Pinkney, Philip Barton Key and John T. Mason. The terms of the court

ﬁcations for the great trust which he had been chosen to administer? Reared in an environment of reﬁne

held at Annapolis were attended by

ment and affluence, and like his paternal forbears a member of the Roman

ments, and observed their methods in

Catholic Church, there was no school but one kept in a log cabin within ten miles of the plantation. To this at the age of eight he was sent. Here he acquired the rudiments of reading, writ ing and arithmetic as far as the rule of three. Another school somewhat far

ther away aﬁorded more advanced in

these eminent lawyers, and for three

years he read law, listened to their argu the preparation and trial of cases. A better school for a young man of Taney’s intellectual capacity and habits of re ﬂection, providing him with the theory of the law, with its practice by masters of their art, could not have been fur

nished, even if in the opinion of the pro fession of today the curricula and moot

struction, but the teacher having be

courts of the law schools ﬁrst be con ceded as superior for the training of the

come insane it was closed, and the father

average student.

having decided to give his son a classical

He was called to the bar in the spring of 1799. Tall, with a digniﬁed presence,

education, he ﬁtted for college under

private tutors, and at ﬁfteen years of

and well equipped for practice, he suf

age entered Dickinson College at Carli'sle,

fered like Erskine and other eminent advocates, as he says in his incomplete

Pa., where three years later, in the au tumn of 1795, he graduated the vale

autobiography, from “a morbid sensi

dictorian of his class, and received the

bility," to which was added the weak

bachelor's degree. Never of robust constitution, and of a retiring dispo— sition and contemplative habit of mind,

ness of a hot temper aroused almost to ﬁerceness by antagonism. He tells us that at times these conditions were al most so overpowering in the earlier years of his career that he would have

the

fox-hunting,

card-playing, hard

drinking proclivities of his father and the

neighboring planters do not appear to

willingly abandoned the law if other

have attracted him, although it is said

means of support could have been pro