What did Roger B. Taney do that increased regional tensions in the United States during the 1850s?
1 Answer
He cast the deciding vote for the Dred Scott decision.
Explanation:
Taney was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was a Jacksonian Democrat (which in those days meant he was pro-slavery and -states' rights) and was a strict originalist in regards to interpreting the Constitution.
The landmark case Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857 concerned a slave, Dred Scott, who accompanied his "master" from Missouri to Illinois and back again. Scott asserted that the moment he set foot on free soil, he was no longer a slave.
Taney, writing for the majority, held that African Americans had no standing to sue anybody under the terms of when the Constitution was originally written, that a slave was such no matter where in the United States he happened to be. He hoped this decision would settle the complex issue of slavery once and for all, but it just inflamed Northern abolitionist sentiment even further.
