“The oldest is the statue of Roger Brooke Taney, which faces the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon. A native Marylander, Taney was chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1836—64. In 1857 he authored the infamous Dred Scott decision, ruling that slaves could not win freedom by escaping to a free state and that no black person could be a U.S. citizen. The statue was set up in 1887, long after the war that rendered Taney’s decision—if not his sentiments—moot.”
