Both the house and Senate voted to remove the bust of former Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who authored the hideous Dred Scott decision in 1857. Dred Scott was an enslaved American man who, along with his wife and two daughters, lived in Illinois briefly, a free state. The family sued when the Scotts were taken back to Missouri, a slave state. The suit was against John Sandford and his wife, an ex-army surgeon who was the “owner” of Dred Scott and his family.
Taney, in his decision for the court, wrote,“for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” The full court ruled for the enslaver in a 7-2 vote.
The text of the bill to remove the bust of Taney called the ruling “infamous”, adding that its the effects “would only be overturned years later by the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution of the United States”, thereby “render[ing] a bust of his likeness unsuitable for the honour of display to the many visitors to the Capitol”.
It also quoted the withering judgment of Frederick Douglass, the great writer and campaigner who escaped slavery in Taney’s native Maryland in 1838.
In May 1857, Douglass lamented “this infamous decision of the slave-holding wing of the supreme court”, which “maintains that slaves are within the contemplation of the constitution of the United States, property … in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property”.
On Wednesday Chris Van Hollen, a senator from Maryland, said: “We should honour those who advanced justice, not glorify those who stood in its way.
“Sending this legislation to the president’s desk is a major step in our efforts to tell the stories of those Americans who have fought for a more perfect union – and remove those who have no place in the halls of Congress.”
The sculpture of Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice, will replace Taney’s bust. The bust is located outside the Old Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol. The vote was passed by voice vote in both chambers.
The Dred Scott case eventually led to the civil war as the American people were disgusted by the ruling.
The struggle continues.