were the judges of
King Charles, who decided for the ship-money in accordance with their
previously announced opinions. The President wrote him a letter in which
he thanked him for abandoning the duties of his profession and promptly
aiding him by removing the deposits; and Webster declared he was the
pliant tool of the Executive. The Massachusetts, Kentucky, and New York
cases in the very first volume of the Reports showed that, if not swift
to do the work for which he had been selected, he did not hesitate to
embody his political principles in judicial decisions. But we do not
intend to examine these, or to review the long series of decisions,
extending over more than a quarter of a century, and through more than
thirty volumes, on the common or even the grander questions discussed in
that tribunal, which will all, or nearly all, be unknown,--save to the
profession,--and will have but little influence on the welfare of the
country and the course of history. We would consider only the more
important of those decisions touching Slavery, the cause of this
Revolution, which have already shaped the course of events, and become
the record of his character as a jurist, a patriot, and a man.

His private opinions about Slavery are not matter of comment or inquiry.
There are two official opinions given by him while Attorney-General in
1831 which relate to the matter. In one of these he had to consider
whether the United States would protect the right of a slave-master over
his slave, employed as a seaman on a ship trading to one of the States,
in which he expressed the opinion that the United States could not, by
treaty, control the several States in the exercise of their power of
declaring a slave free on being brought within their limits. In the
other, he held that a person removing his slaves with him to Texas,
merely for a temporary sojourn, and with the intention of returning
again in a short time to the United States, might safely bring his
slaves back with him. But he then declared, that if the owner had placed
his slaves in Texas as their domicile, he would be liable to
prosecution, under the act of Congress, if he should bring them back
into the United States.

In 1837, the very year Taney took his seat on the Supreme Bench, he gave
the opinion of the Court in the cases of the Garonne and the Fortune,
two vessels libelled, under the act of 1818, for bringing as slaves into
New Orleans persons who had, in 1831 and 183