Constitution of the State, the electors met at Annapolis on the proper day. Twenty-four electors were necessary to constitute a quorum in the college. The 21 Whig electors qualified to take their seats in the college. The 19 Van Buren electors refused to meet in the college, unless the Whig electors would agree beforehand that 8 Van Buren Senators should be elected and

7 Whig. They based their proposition on the ground that the 19 Van Buren electors represented counties which contained a majority of the people. This proposition entirely ignored the Constitution of the State, which was not founded upon the numerical majority, but upon the majority as the people were organized under the established Government. The Whig electors refused to yield. So determined was Governor Veasy, who was a Whig, to maintain the Government and the Constitution, that he issued a proclamation calling on the military authority to hold itself in readiness to aid the civil to maintain its power. The 19 Van Buren electors finally went into the college, and a Senate was elected according to the provisions of the Constitution. Afterwards the reform was effected lawfully which was attempted to be effected by revolution. Mr. Taney had just been made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He had discountenanced this movement of his party to get the control of the State. And I find letters from distinguished persons of his party, who favored the movement, expressing

the hope that he would not oppose it, which he answered, expressing strong condemnation of it as illadvised, rash, and unfortunate.

Neither friendship, nor politics, nor religion, so far as I have ascertained from access to all that remains to testify of the secrets of his life, ever induced him even to hesitate to follow the dictates of his judgment, enlightened by a conscience ever looking up for guidance to Him to whom he owed his first allegiance.

CHAPTER IV.

JUDICIAL LIFE.

A. D. 1836-1856.

E now enter upon the narrative of that part of

W we

Mr. Taney's life in which we shall contemplate him in the full dimensions of his greatness.

Chief-Justice Marshall died in the summer of 1835. On the succeeding 28th of December, President Jackson nominated to the Senate Mr. Taney, to fill his place in the Supreme Court. Since his nomination as Associate Justice, the political complexion of the Senate had changed. Yet the nomination was opposed with great determination. Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster led the opposition. So violent were his feelings of hostility to Mr. Taney, engendered during the strife with the Bank of the United States, that Mr. Clay permitted his assaults to degenerate into scurrility. Little did he and Mr. Webster dream that the great Chief-Justice Marshall had endeavored to help Mr. Taney to sit by his side as an Associate Justice. On the 15th of March, 1836, the nomination was confirmed by a majority of fourteen

votes.

Members of the Senate and distinguished persons everywhere congratulated Mr. Taney upon his appointment. But I shall pass by all their letters of congratulation, to give place to one from James Dixon, of the Frederick bar, who, as we have seen, studied law under Mr. Taney, and was appointed by him one of his deputies when he was made Attorney-General of Maryland.

FREDERICK, MARYLAND, March 17, 1836.

DEAR SIR:-I have just understood that your nomination as the Chief Justice has been ratified, and I cannot but take leave to offer you my sincerest congratulations. I know you will believe me, when I say frankly that I have no selfish motive in this communication, but write simply to utter a few thoughts which I am unwilling to stifle, though to you of small value. There never lived a mortal, except my mother, for whom I have felt so much unmixed regard and friendship; yea, I may add any other word the language affords, and yet fail to express my feelings deep feelings-on that subject. There is no one alive to whom I feel so deep a debtor; though I have always known that you neither knew nor dreamed I was under any obligation. In a word, I never left your presence without feeling in love with virtue, and have often and often recorded the same in my diary; for I have kept one almost all my life. I am proud that you will be now the very head itself of a profession you have always loved and honored; but though fitly then, you will never receive, even in that exalted seat, a single particle more of my respect than you have

long had already. You have had my best and purest, and more I shall never attempt to offer.

Yours sincerely,

Hon. R. B. TANEY.

J. DIXON.

This letter I found among the papers of the Chief Justice. The writer is long since dead, and his diary is destroyed. I know full well that I act in harmony with the sentiments of the Chief Justice, when I present this letter from his old pupil, in this memoir, in preference to congratulations from those high in places of ambition. And, besides, it gives insight into Mr. Taney's character. It shows how he appeared to Mr. Dixon, who knew him so entirely.

It has been said, and perhaps was true, that Mr Taney was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of his aid to General Jackson on the bank question, and especially for the act of removing the public deposits. And it is quite certain that his great predecessor, Marshall, was appointed Chief Justice because of his defense, when a representative in Congress, of Mr. Adams's administration, in the case of Jonathan Robbins, who claimed to be an American citizen, but was delivered up to the British Government as a deserter, and was hanged at the yard-arm of a British man-of-war. The act was seized upon by the opposite party and denounced by resolutions offered in the House of Representatives; but the transcendent speech of Marshall on the floor of the House