The House voted Tuesday to approve a bill that would remove from the Capitol a bust of Roger Taney, the former U.S. chief justice best known for an infamous pro-slavery decision, as well as statues of Jefferson Davis and others who served in the Confederacy (article available here).
The Taney bust would be replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice to serve on the nation’s highest court. The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nation’s fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the court’s history.
The Supreme Court held that Scott, as a Black man, was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue, and found that legislation restricting slavery in certain territories was unconstitutional.