The House passed a bill Wednesday to replace a U.S. Capitol bust of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the infamous decision to protect slavery in the 1857 Dred Scott case, with a bust of the first black justice, Thurgood Marshall.
The 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford established that neither enslaved nor free African Americans were considered citizens in the country and thus were not protected by the U.S. Constitution. The ruling was part of U.S. law until 1865, the year the Civil War ended, coinciding with passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments soon after.
<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1671118299895,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1671118299895,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_71118296", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1205664"} }); ","_id":"00000185-1667-d703-abd5-5fe7503b0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video Embed”While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its 19 rooms,” according to the bill’s text.
DEMOCRATS: CAPITOL STATUE PURGE WILL SPARE FOUNDING FATHERS
The bill already passed the Senate by unanimous consent last week and now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature. The Washington Examiner contacted the White House for a response.
A leading proponent of the bill, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), argued that “figures like Taney belong in history textbooks and classroom discussions, not in marbled bronze on public display of honor.”
Under the bill’s text, the Taney bust is to be removed no “later than 45 days after” its enactment, and a bust of Marshall is slated to replace it “not later than 2 years after” the removal of the old bust.
Marshall is best known for his prior work as a civil rights lawyer who used to fight against Jim Crow laws and his efforts to dismantle segregation in the nation. Before he came to the court, one of his most famous cases he argued was the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, which saw the justices at the time rule that “separate but equal” facilities violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Supreme Court Marshall Confirmation
The passage of the bill and its measure to commemorate the first black justice also came shortly after his widow, Cecilia Marshall, died last month at the age of 94.
Last year, the bill overwhelmingly passed in the House by a 305-113 vote but did not advance in the Senate.
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The removal of Taney’s bust coincides with broader efforts by Congress in recent years to remove similar statues of the Civil War era. In 2020, the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from the Capitol.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that after the police killing of black man George Floyd in 2020, which sparked international protests against police brutality, 167 Confederate memorials were removed in the nation.
