Supreme Court, United States: The Court under Taney

Under Marshall's successor, Roger B. Taney, the court recognized to some extent the claims of state regulatory authority through police power. However, in the Dred Scott Case, Taney made what many persons considered an unwarranted limitation of federal authority in forbidding Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. So violent was the reaction of antislavery forces to the decision that in the North the prestige of the court declined greatly. The low point in the judiciary's estate came during the Civil War when Taney's challenge of President Lincoln's power to suspend habeas corpus was ignored by the President and denounced by the Northern press (see Merryman, ex parte).

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The Current Court
• The 1950s to the PresentThe 1950s and 1960s: Civil Liberties and Criminal Procedure
• The Roosevelt Years
• From the Civil War to the 1940s1937
• The Court under Taney
• The Court under Marshall
• Early Years to the Civil War
• Membership
• Functions
• Procedures
• Scope and Jurisdiction
• Bibliography

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