Attorney General: Roger B. Taney

Roger Brooke Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on March 17, 1777. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Dickinson College in 1795, read law in Annapolis with Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase of the Maryland General Court, and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1799. That same year, he was elected to a one-year term in the Maryland House of Delegates. Taney settled in Frederick, Maryland, served five years in the state senate, moved to Baltimore in 1823, and in 1827 was appointed attorney general of Maryland.

President Andrew Jackson appointed Taney as Attorney General of the United States on July 20, 1831. Taney resigned that office on September 23, 1833, to accept appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. The Senate failed to confirm his cabinet position the following year, after which he resumed the private practice of law. In 1835, President Jackson appointed Taney to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was confirmed by the Senate and held that office until his death on October 12, 1864, in Washington, D.C.