A Symbol of Bigotry That Should Be Removed

It seems as though this year's 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision will have a special meaning in Maryland, as officials there are lobbying to remove statues of Roger Brooke Taney from the front of Frederick City Hall and the Annapolis State House. Taney was a Frederick resident who, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, authored the Dred Scott ruling, which ensconced the most institutional form of racism into the fabric of our legal system. Taney's likeness should be removed, not merely because of his defense of slavery but because of how he defended it.

Taney is vilified for deciding not only that escaped slaves had to return to bondage but also that "neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people." Based on precedent in British, colonial and early American law, and because signatories of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, equality was deemed not self-evident for those with dark skin, he reasoned. They were not to be considered people under the Constitution as it stood.

Defenders reject Taney's blemished image, pointing to empathy in word and deed: his use of the phrase "unfortunate race," his decision to free his slaves, and his choice to give pensions to those too old to labor.

Yet the question is not about Taney the man but about Taney the symbol: the social meaning of Roger Brooke Taney. In fact, the statues are no different from Confederate battle flags atop government buildings in Southern states. Those discussions hinge on concepts such as "heritage" and "states' rights," deliberately employing sanitized abstractions to remove from the conversation all mention of the violence, inequity and immorality of the romanticized past.

Taney's Dred Scott decision is a touchstone for those, including current Supreme Court justices, who champion the doctrine of "originalism" wherein laws are to be interpreted according to the Framers' meanings, even if we come to realize that they are based in error. Like the rhetorical use of sanitized abstractions, originalism deliberately seeks to cage off from discussion the biased and scientifically inaccurate view of the world that formed the context for those original meanings.

Just as Taney argued that the law must remain as bigoted as those who created it, despite facts that undermine their prejudice, contemporary originalism cleverly maintains the injustices of the past, even when they have been debunked and purged from the rest of society.

What ought to worry us is not just Taney's conclusion but his means of reasoning. Taney's statues celebrate the view that old falsehoods used to justify discrimination should remain entrenched in our laws even when, as Taney admits, we find it "difficult at this day to realize the [flawed] state of public opinion" in those past eras. To cite "original intent" or "heritage," while ignoring the scientifically untenable bigotry that forms their social context, is to employ a dastardly red herring to reinforce injustice.

These symbols of bigotry should be removed.

-- Steven Gimbel

Frederick, Md.