The Late Chief Justice Roger 3. Taney. 



23 



Calvert county, a member of the House of Delegates, the 

 popular branch in the legislature of Maryland. He was 

 elected as a federalist, and served with credit in the session 

 commencing in November, 1799. He was a candidate for 

 re-election the next year, and failed on account of the de- 

 cisive change then occurring in the politics of the state. 

 This defeat was probably one of the most fortunate events 

 in the course of his life. He now betook himself to the 

 practice of the law ; choosing Frederick city as the field 

 of his labors, because it seemed to offer better opportuni- 

 ties to a young man than a larger city like Baltimore. 

 His choice was a wise one ; it gave him a pleasant home 

 in a beautiful valley, in the midst of a prosperous commu- 

 nity; it gave him opportuuities for study and a fair share 

 of business ; it brought him into close and intimate rela- 

 tions with the whole body of the people ; and this in turn 

 gave to him the strength which every wise-hearted man 

 derives from the consciousness that he is working in his 

 measure for the common welfare. He was not indifferent 

 to his own interests ; but diligent and studious. After a 

 practice here of about five years, like a sensible man as he 

 was, he married him a wife, Anne Phebe Charlton Key, 

 a sister of the author of the " Star Spangled Banner," of 

 a family residing in the immediate neighborhood on a 

 plantation, owning slaves, without forgetting the nature 

 of the African or his interests. Let me say here, lest I 

 forget it, that Mr. Taney inherited slaves as property, and 

 manumitted them. This marriage was a happy one ; it was 

 cemented by a genuine affection to the end of life, and it 

 was embellished through more than forty years by a 

 beautiful courtesy, in spite of the fact that the husband 

 was a devoted catholic, and the wife a devout protestant. 



Mr. Taney rose steadily in his profession, and was em- 

 ployed in many important causes. He acted as counsel 

 for Gen. Wilkinson, tried before a military court at Freder- 



