Lewis, Walker. Without Fear or Favor: a Biography ... Roger Brooke Taney (1965)

Mr. Lewis makes a cold scientific statement (538): "One of the joys of historical research is the revelation of how much of the milk of human kindness there is in libraries. It is in the realm of research that one sees librarians in their truest light. They are a race apart, untrammelled by false distinctions of creed, color, or national origin. Big and small, male and female, young and old, they share a sense of dedication. In return for their favor, they ask only a genuine interest in what they have to offer; once assured of this, they give of themselves without stint".

8: Maryland offered haven to persecuted Puritans. Once they became the majority, they started persecuting Catholics.

28: In 1796 RT read law with with Jeremiah Chase, Maryland member of the convention which ratified the Constitution

43: RT had a miniature painting made of himself, as a gift. "A bachelor in such a state is as good as gone".

44: He and Anne retained servants. They kept no slaves, other than two inherited who were too old to fend for themselves. The others they freed with a purse.

76: in 1816, counsel of a society in Baltimore to combat kidnapping of free blacks. Later VP of American Colonization Society (i.e., Liberian scheme)

79: "A hard necessity compels us to endure the evil of slavery for a time. It was imposed upon us by another nation when we were in a state of colonial vassalage. It cannot be easily and suddenly removed. Yet while it continues, it is a blot on our national character". He spoke with abhorrence of "those reptiles who live by trading in human flesh".

96: The Jesuits of Georgetown objected to Baltimore Archbishop Marechal's appeal to Rome and called in the State Department in 1824

129: The Bank of US battle. (US had only 20% share).

132: Jackson as property man vs. Nicholas Biddle the money man

133: Biddle's use of drafts on distant banks [kiting checks]

134: that the bank threatened the US government [i.e., Jackson]

138 & 147: Estimate of Andrew Jackson's character and intelligence

142: on Lewis Cass

152: "It is the law which made the Bank of the US notes legal tender for payment of debts and taxes to US government which gave it its success, not any skill of management"

168: the dishonest, vote‑buying behavior of Biddle

253: on RT's son‑in‑law: "a quiet, unassuming wheel‑horse in civic affairs"

277: Washington, the city of magnificent pretensions, with broad avenues that begin in nothing and lead nowhere [Dickens]

350: In 1775, the British Colonial Secretary on slavery: "We cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage in any degree a traffic which is so beneficial to the nation"

351: "It cannot be doubted that the [slavery] article constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed" [Joseph Story]

351: Whitney's cotton gin suddenly made it [slavery] profitable again

352: the Kansas Nebraska Act and the lead up to the Dred Scott case

356: RT's opinion [1832] as A.G., that negroes were not considered by the various states to be susceptible of citizenship. Nearly all the states denied them the right to vote; Massachusetts adopted laws to discourage immigration (They could not come and stay longer than two months, under penalty of whipping).

358: Louis Agassiz's "scientific" measurements of negro brain sizes

360: Fr. McElvoy's description of RT's behavior in church he got in line for confession, like everybody else]; and RT's fear of disrupting the social structure

361: "Every intelligent person whose life has been passed in a slaveholding state will see that a general and sudden emancipation would be ruinous to the negroes, as well as to the white population..."

364: that time was on the side of freedom

367: Prigg v. Pennsylvania [on the Fugitive Slave Act]

369: [the abolitionists exciting themselves with images of life among the slaves, but not with images of life among the poor]

388+: the Missouri Compromise. Could Congress restrict ownership?

401: in the law of 1792, naturalization was limited to free whites

401ff: the attitude of whites from 1700 to the time of the Dred Scott decision

420ff: the attacks on the court began in 1848 because the abolitionists recognized that slavery was legal

446: Merryman case [habeas corpus]

463: relations with Lincoln