Who was the Chief Justice of the United States in 1860?

Answer 1

President Andrew Jackson nominated Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to the Supreme Court in 1836, where he served until 1864. Taney is best remembered for presiding over the Dred Scott case (Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 US 393 (1857)) that held slaves and their descendants could never be citizens of the United States.

Answer 2

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, (served 1836-1864)

President Andrew Jackson nominated Chief Justice Taney to replace the great John Marshall, who died in office in 1835.

Taney is perhaps best remember for authoring the opinion in the Scott v. Sanford*, 60 US 393 (1857) opinion that proclaimed African-Americans were "of an inferior order and unfit to associate with the white race," and therefore, could not be considered United States' citizens, and had no standing to sue for their freedom.

Taney also declared the Missouri Compromise, an agreement between the states designed to check the spread of slavery into new territories, unconstitutional.

Taney had hoped the decision, which was deliberately timed to occur before future President Buchanan's inauguration, would put an end to the question of slavery and settle the bitter disputes between slave owners and abolitionists. Instead, Taney decisions outraged abolitionists, widened the rift between slave-holding and free states, and became one of the many catalysts for the US Civil War.

Frederick Douglas, an influential African-American abolitionist who considered the decision unconstitutional, accurately predicted the outcome of the Dred Scott case would lead to political conflict and violence.

* The case is typically published as Scott v. Sandford, (1857), because the court erred and added an extra "d" to the respondent's name.