FREDERICK, MD. (AP) .- A museum exhibit about slavery in Frederick County is as notable for its location as its subject matter.
It's in the former Frederick home of Roger Brooke Taney. Taney was the Supreme Court chief justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision affirming slavery in 1857. Taney wrote that even freed slaves and their descendants could never be U.S. citizens because the framers of the Constitution regarded blacks as inferior to whites. The case became a catalyst for the Civil War.
The
Historical Society of Frederick County says the exhibit examines the lives of thousands of local slaves.
Taney practiced law in Frederick from 1801 to 1823. He freed all eight of his slaves by 1821.
The exhibit is open Saturdays and Sundays through mid-December.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
