Biden Signs Bill to Remove Bust of Dred Scott Decision’s Author

A marble bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney is displayed in the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on March 9, 2020. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

President Joe Biden signed a bill on Dec. 28 to remove the bust of former Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, author of the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, and replace it with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice.

Democrats had called for taking down Taney’s bust since 2020, when House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Rep. David Trone—both from Taney’s home state of Maryland—debuted the legislation. That bill passed through the House in 2021 but did not advance past the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Republicans.

The legislation signed by Biden on Dec. 28 unanimously passed through the House and Senate earlier this month.

“Figures like Taney belong in history textbooks and classroom discussions, not in marbled bronze on public display of honor,” Hoyer said on the House floor on Dec. 14. “Yes, we ought to know who Roger Brooke Taney was, a man who was greatly admired in his time in the state of Maryland. But he was wrong.

“Over three million people visit our Capitol each year,“ Hoyer added. “The people we choose to honor in our halls signal to those visitors which principles we cherish as a nation.”

Dred Scott's loss is the most publicized case of freedom litigation in U.S. history, but hundreds of Missouri slaves actually won their freedom in court. Public Domain

The Dred Scott case, legally known as Dred Scott v. Sandford, represented a decade-long quest for freedom by a black slave named Dred Scott.

The case made its way through multiple levels of the legal system and eventually reached the Supreme Court.

Taney, who was the court’s fifth chief justice, wrote the final majority opinion that declared “African Americans were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in Federal courts” and that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because slaves were their legal property.

The decision also ruled that The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which was passed to address growing tension between slave and non-slave states, was unconstitutional.

President James Monroe signed the law that admitted Missouri to the Union as a state that allowed slavery, and Maine as a free state.

As described by language in the bill signed by Biden, “this {Dred Scott} decision further declared that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.”

“While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision,” the legislation said.

Scott and his family were eventually freed by their slave owner on May 26, 1857. He lived a little more than two years as a free man, dying of tuberculosis on Sept. 17, 1858.

Taney’s ruling was in effect until the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution were ratified in 1865, 1868, and 1870 respectively. These measures outlawed slavery, gave citizenship to African-Americans and guaranteed equal protection under the law, and authorized the right for former slaves to vote.

The Emancipation Proclamation of Sept. 22, 1862 freed slaves living in Confederate states, but it wasn’t until the 13^th Amendment was enacted that slavery was abolished.

Taney, who led the court from 1836 to 1864, swore in President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. His bust sits inside the U.S. Capitol’s Old Supreme Court Chamber, where the legislative body met from 1810 to 1860.

The bill orders the removal of Taney’s bust within 45 days. It also calls for an agreement to secure a bust of Marshall within two years, and that its location should be near the Old Supreme Court Chamber.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 16, 2019. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

After the Senate passed the bill earlier this month, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said in a statement that “Thurgood Marshall was an inspiration who helped tear down the walls of segregation in America. It is wholly appropriate that such a civil rights and legal icon displace Roger Taney in the U.S. Capitol.

“Both hailed from Maryland, but Marshall was a beacon of hope for racial equality,” Cardin added. “His uplifting voice of equality and opportunity is exactly what our nation needs at this moment.”

A key figure in the Civil Rights movement, Marshall served as the Supreme Court’s first black justice from 1967 to 1991.

As the NAACP’s chief counsel, Marshall fought against segregation and was pivotal in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ordered the end of segregation in K-12 schools.

“As a towering civil rights leader, defending our founding principles and the first Black Supreme Court Justice, Marshall is a Marylander worthy of a place of honor in these historic halls,” Hoyer said.