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
