Letters

To the Editor:

Why do we need to know the mind of Roger Taney now?

Under the category of “Disciplinary Notes” (Spring 2016), Robert Paquette, a distinguished historian who co-founded the Alexander Hamilton Institute, in a publication dedicated to saving the modern university, professes to shed new light on the thinking of the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Roger Taney, author of the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sanford decision that preceded, if it did not help precipitate, the Civil War. The question is why.

Is it because the academy is currently debating Civil War issues? Have they come up in any journals or in the mass media? Perhaps they were mentioned in the election campaign? Or maybe Prof. Paquette, who recently discovered a letter from a British diplomat to his superiors at home concerning