Bust of former chief justice, proslavery Marylander removed from US Capitol – WTOP News

A former chief justice of the USA behind an notorious proslavery ruling has misplaced his place of honor within the U.S. Capitol.

The marble bust of Roger Taney of Maryland has been completely faraway from the Previous Senate Chamber. It was Taney who wrote the Supreme Courtroom’s Dred Scott determination in 1857.

Scott was a Black man who sought to sue for his freedom in federal court docket, however the excessive court docket’s determination declared that Scott couldn’t sue as a result of as an enslaved man, he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. The choice additionally held that Congress couldn’t ban slavery.

Taney, an enslaver, wrote that Black individuals “had not rights which the white man was sure to respect.”

Senate Democrats Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, together with their fellow Marylander from the Home, Steny Hoyer, joined Senate leaders to announce on Monday that the Taney bust was gone.

The Home voted on a invoice almost two years in the past to take away the bust from the U.S. Capitol.

Taney’s ruling additional infected the nation within the years earlier than the Civil Struggle.

“The individuals we memorialize within the halls of the Capitol ought to be leaders who labored to develop liberty and construct a extra excellent union,” Van Hollen mentioned.

The Taney bust shall be changed by the sculpture of one other Marylander — the primary African American on the Supreme Courtroom, Thurgood Marshall.

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