Roger Brooke Taney, a Pioneer in Law and Social Economics
Abstract
"So old Taney is dead," wrote Colonel Francis Adams. The fact that he had correctly interpreted an abstract question of constitutional law, and that the dissenting voices only proclaimed what it should have been, meant little to those who lived through an aftermath of civil war. The South and Democracy were in ruins. A new race of men were to stalk across the theatre of history, a race of Sewards, Shermans and Conklings, who measured progress in the multi- plication of mechanical contrivances, and to whom the theory laissez-faire was the epitome of political achievement. A new philosophy of evolution was to glorify the conquests of the strong over the weak until in answer to this call of Manifest Destiny empires eluded the setting sun. Today the challenge to our democratic and constitutional government exists in even a fiercer form. Shall we live under a government of laws or of personalities? Taney was a discredited prophet in his day, but we shall point out the long continuity he has had with the past and with the future.
Subject Area
Law|Social research|Education|Economics
Recommended Citation
Gorman, Vincent J, "Roger Brooke Taney, a Pioneer in Law and Social Economics" (1936). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI28960404.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI28960404
