758 



TAXEY, ROGER 



TELEGRAPH, ELECTRIC. 



time of his death. When Mr. Taney became 

 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court lie was al- 

 ready considerably past the prime of life ; he was 

 fifty-nine years of age. He had been previously 

 a lawyer in good practice and of considerable 

 local repute ; originally a Federalist in politics, 

 and at one time of his life the friend of impar- 

 tial liberty. In defending the Rev. Jacob 

 Gruber from a charge of inciting slaves to dis- 

 order in Maryland, in 1818, Mr. Taney used 

 these memorable words: "A hard necessity 

 indeed compels us to endure the evil of slavery 

 for a time. It was imposed upon us by another 

 nation, while yet we were in a state of colonial 

 vassalage. It cannot be easily or suddenly re- 

 moved. Yet while it continues it is a blot on 

 our national character, and every real lover of 

 freedom confidently hopes that it will be effect- 

 ually, though it must be gradually, wiped 

 away, and earnestly looks for the means by 

 which this necessary object may be attained. 

 And until it shall be accomplished, until the 

 time shall come when we can point without a 

 blush to the language held in the Declaration 

 of Independence, every friend of humanity will 

 seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and 

 better, to the utmost of his power, the wretched 

 condition of the slave." 



Judge Taney, though not a man of the same 

 exhaustive learning and comprehensiveness 

 of judgment with his illustrious predecessor, 

 John Marshall, was extensively, and in some 

 directions, profoundly versed in the law. His 

 decisions were for the most part cautious, sen- 

 sible, and on the whole sound. In his inter- 

 pretations of the Constitution- of the United 

 States the great crucial test of the wisdom 

 and independence of the Court he inclined to 

 those middle and moderate opinions which 

 treat the Union not as a consolidated nation on 

 one side, nor as a mere confederation on the 

 other, but as a composite or mixed nation, in 

 which the sovereignty has been divided between 

 the central and the local governments. 



In the famous Dred Scott case, in which the 

 only legal point involved was a plea to the 

 jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, upon a writ 

 of error to the Supreme Court, the Chief Jus- 

 tice having decided that there was no jurisdic- 

 tion, proceeded to give an extra-judicial opin- 

 ion which gave him an unpleasant notoriety, 

 and was repudiated by some of the ablest of 

 the associated justices. It was to the effect 

 that a free negro of the African race whose 

 ancestors were brought into this country and 

 sold as slaves is not and cannot be a ' citizen ; " 

 that for more than a century previous to the 

 adoption of the Declaration of Independence 

 negroes, whether slaves or free, had been re- 

 garded 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 .hey had no rights which 

 the white man was bound to respect ^" that 

 Dred Scott, a negro slave, who was removed by 

 bis master from Missouri to Illinois, lost what- 



ever freedom he may have thus acquired by 

 being subsequently removed into the territory 

 of Wisconsin and by his return to the State of 

 Missouri; that the inhibition of slavery in the 

 territories of the United States lying north of 

 the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, 

 known as the Missouri Compromise, was un- 

 constitutional ; that the only two clauses in the 

 Constitution which refer to negroes, treat them 

 as persons whom it is morally lawful to deal in 

 as articles of property; that the citizen of any 

 State may take into a territory of the United 

 States any article of property recognized by 

 the Constitution, or, in other words, carry his 

 slaves thither without molestation to his per- 

 fect right of ownership; and that Congress 

 could not exercise any authority whatever over 

 th'n species of property that it could not con- 

 stitutionally exercise over other property. 



TELEGRAPH, ELECTRIC. In the volumes 

 of this CYCLOPAEDIA for the years 1861 and 1803, 

 will be found articles in relation to certain great 

 lines of telegraph, including those recently 

 contemplated or now in prosecution designed 

 to establish communication between the conti- 

 nents or to complete circuits around the world. 

 Of the great lines alluded to, four now com- 

 mand a large share of interest and attention. 

 These are: 1. The Angio-Indian telegraph, a 

 southern branch from the European network 

 of lines, which has been very recently com- 

 pleted between Constantinople and Rangoon, 

 through Calcutta, and is intended yet to stretch 

 throughout Farther India to China on the north, 

 and into Australia on the south. 2. The Siberian 

 or Russian Asiatic telegraph, a northern branch 

 from the same European system, already com- 

 pleted from Kazan, in European Russia, to 

 Irkootsk, and thence at least to Iviakhta (a 

 city south of Lake Baikal and on the northern 

 border of Chinese Mongolia), and which, be- 

 sides throwing off southward several important 

 branches, is designed to extend to the eastern 

 coast of Asia, at the mouth of the Amoor 

 River. 3. The Collins Overland (Americo-Rus- 

 sian) telegraph, designed to connect the entire 

 North American system of lines as well as, 

 eventually, the South American also by way 

 of Behring's Strait or the North Pacific, with 

 the great Russian line, at its terminus at the 

 mouth of the Amoor, and thus with the entire 

 telegraph system of the Old World. 4. The At- 

 lantic telegraph, also intended to effect a union 

 of the systems of wires upon the two hemi- 

 spheres, but by means of a cable from the west- 

 ern coast of Ireland to Newfoundland, and a 

 renewed attempt at the laying down of which 

 is to be made during the summer of 1865. The 

 preparatory work connected with the latter two 

 enterprises is already actively in progress. 



The Anglo-Indian Line. The British Gov- 

 ernment has sought to gain communication 

 with India by two routes, which, however, 

 would probably coincide through the length of 

 a cable from the Persian Gulf across the head 

 of the Arabian Sea to Ilindostan. The first 



