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... he Charles River bridges profits (toll). They claimed that the erection of Warren bridge was a violation of their chartered rights and therefore their actions were against the constitution of Massachusetts an against the constitution of the United States. The Charles River proprietors were to be reimbursed for their building the bridge over a total of forty years. after this forty year period, the bridge was to be property of the commonwealth, and within the period, the proprietors were to pay two-hundred pounds to Harvard college or University in compensation for the money lost for the ferry income. (The ferry that passed through the Charles River was to lose money due to the bridge that the Charles River proprietors had built. But the building of another bridge was to postpone the proprietors reimbursement, therefore the Charles River proprietors fi!
led a suit. The original bridge insisted that it's charter contained an implied monopoly and that creation of a new free bridge destroyed the vested rights it enjoyed in that monopoly. The Charles River Bridge Company challenged the state decision allowing a second bridge saying that within its character was the exclusive privilege to carry such traffic. After five days of argument in January 1837, the court announced its decision in February and the court rejected the Charles River Proprietors argument. Taney declared that extraordinary privileges, such as exemption form taxation or monopoly from a bridge site, may not be read into a corporate charter by implication. The state legislature may grant these privileges if it wishes, but it must do so explicitly.
Any other rule, Taney warned, would permit older and obsolete technologies to impede material progress. Taney declared that the rights not specifically conferred could not be inferred from the language of a document! t. The courts position implicitly endorsed the view of the competitive, not the monopoly model of economic development.
This decision showed the Taney courts keen sensitivity to the impact of technological change in the law. With Taney's reasoning, I actually am inclined to agree with the courts judgment. With the reason that the Charles River Bridge Company was taking money from the Harvard college ferry, why are they going to resent the Warren Bridge Company for jeopardizing their funds? Another Taney court case dealing with slavery was Kentucky versus Dennison. In 1859, Willis Lago, a free black from Ohio, helped a Kentucky slave named Charlotte escape to Ohio. Kentucky indicted Lago for theft.
Governor Berlin Magoffin of Kentucky asked Ohio Governor salmon P. Chase to extradite Lago. Chase, an anti-slavery advocate, refused to comply, arguing that Lago had not committed a crime recognized by Ohio Law. Magoffin had waited until Chase left office in 1860 and renewed the requisition with the new Ohio Governor, William Dennison who also refused to comply.
Magoffin when sought a writ of mandamus to force Dennison to act. Magoffin sued in the United States Supreme Court, under the courts original jurisdiction for cases between two states. The case presented Chief Justice Roger Taney with a major dilemma. Taney was profoundly proslavery, deeply antagonistic toward the North, and desirous of settling all constitutional issues surrounding slavery in favor o! f the South. But with succession already in progress, Taney was loathe to rule that the Supreme Court of the Federal Government might have the power to force state governors to act.
After classicizing the Ohio Governors for not cooperating with the criminal extradition clause of the constitution, Taney ruled that the court had no power to force a state to comply with its constitutional obligation. In dealing with slavery, , the Taney court too often claimed that they could do nothing about it. This set out a tone for their court that stated they didn't want to be involved with cases dealing with slaves. The abruptness in their decisions and closed mindedness leads you to think how such a court could have played a role in our history. Another historic case in the Taney era was the Ex Parte Merryman, in 1861. With the end of Jacksons term coming and going, the newly inaugurated president of a divided nation, Abraham Lincoln anticipated working with a generally cooperative Congress.
It was not to be as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney tried to lead a bloc against Union war objectives. His opinion in Ex Parte Merryman condemned Lincoln's "Arbitrary Arrests" of allegedly disloyal civilians as arrogation's of congresses sole authority to declare and wage war. Taney denounced the presidents refusal to produce the detainee John Merryman as a fatal blow too constitutional government. Lincoln believed that the Merryman opinion violated Taney's own political question doctrine counseling judicial restraint which suggested that in civil strife the elective branches bore responsibility for making the basic policy choices. Taney contradicted his own opinion.
He had once suggested that when there was trouble in the! United States whether civil or world, the judicial branch which included the president of the United States, should be able to make a decision on what should be allowed or not. President Lincoln's suspension of the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus in April 1861 presented an issue of government infringement of civil liberties that could be reasonably be brought before the judiciary. (The writ of Habeas Corpus is a court order that a prisoner be brought before the court and that the detaining officer show cause why the prisoner should not be released; designed to prevent illegal arrests and unlawful imprisonment's. ) The executive branch and congress gave permission for authorities to arrest persons without warrants, throw them in jail without trials and they were only able to be released when the danger had passed without benefit of any Supreme Court opinion on the constitutionality of these actions. Before the government's policy was put into place, however, Chief just! ce Roger Taney attempted to control the actions of the Legislative Branch by invalidating Lincoln's suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus Taney questioned the presidents action in Ex Prate Merryman.
On May 25, 1861, a sections named john Merryman was imprisoned by military order at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, for his alleged participation in the destruction of railroad bridges. Merryman petitioned Chief Justice Roger Taney, presiding judge of the circuit court at Baltimore for a writ of habeas corpus. General George Cadwalader in command of Fort McHenry, refused to obey the writ, however, on the basis that President Lincoln had suspended Habeas Corpus. Taney cited Cadwalader for contempt of court. Holding a session at the chambers as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, (rather than presiding over a session of the circuit court), Taney on the 28 th of May, 1861, declared Merryman entitled to his freedom on the grounds that he was illegally detained.
In an unusual move, he! filed and opinion condemning Merryman's arrest as an arbitrary and illegal denial of civil liberty. Taney stated that military detention of civilians like Merryman was unconstitutional because only congress had authority to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus. Taney described the president as a mere administrative officer charged with faithful enforcement of the laws. according to the Chief Justice this amounted to a constitutional duty not to execute the laws "as they are expanded and adjudged by the co-ordinate branch of the government, to which that duty is assigned by the constitution. " Taney sent a copy of his opinion to Lincoln. President Lincoln justified his action in a message to Congress in July 1861.
He reasoned further that the framers did not intend that in an emergency no action should be taken to protect the public safety by suspending Habeas Corpus until Congress should be assembled. More importantly he ignored Taney's opinion. Merryman, however, was lat! er released.
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