ABSTRACT
Roger Brooke Taney, who served from 1836 to 1864 as the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, had the difficult task of succeeding the legendary John Marshall. Both Andrew Jackson and Taney exhibited border-state personalities and favored less federal government intervention in the economy, except as related to the protection of slaveholders. Jackson's political philosophy of majority rule among whites-Indians were considered incidental-was echoed in the legal positivism of Taney's jurisprudence. His approach worked well relative to banking, commerce, transportation, and other economic issues, but was disastrous for human rights. His ultimate solution for slavery was to encourage colonization abroad. Taney and sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln conflicted over presidential actions during the Civil War. He could abandon those external behaviors, but he could not abandon his fundamental elitism, ingrained by his aristocratic Southern upbringing, to embrace the democratic values of the Lincoln administration.
