He was now an old man, but of unusual vigor, and able to wear out younger men with his long pedestrian jaunts. He loved society and mingled with it freely, unable to escape it if he would because of the social and intellectual brilliance of his wife and the charm and beauty of his daughter. His fame was seemingly secure. His reputation was world-wide. His conversational gifts were of an uncommon order. His friends and social intimates were confined to no party, and embraced the best of both. After a brief period in the House he had entered the Senate where he stood among the foremost. Such was the man Jackson called to the head of his Cabinet--one whose character and career suffer nothing by comparison with those of his most distinguished predecessors, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay. V We are not concerned with the Roger B. Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision, but with that portion of his career, little known and appreciated, which convinced Jackson that he was worthy of wearing the mantle of John Marshall. And that is by far the most dramatic phase of his life--his battling years. Born and reared on a Maryland plantation, among horses and slaves, he grew up to be an independent, self-reliant youth. At Dickinson College he refused to take down a portion of a lecture which assailed our republican governmental system. As valedictorian of his class he suffered torments from a morbid fear of public speaking. Thus even as a student he was independent in thought, courageously devoted to his convictions, brave in battle, but miserably self-conscious on parade. On graduating, he returned to the woods and fields of the plantation, abandoned his books, and gave himself up to the joys of fox-hunting, leading the life of the old-fashioned English country gentleman. When he took up the study of law in Annapolis, however, he abandoned this outdoor life in turn, and, declining all social invitations, devoted himself to his studies, and to fighting his native timidity, in a debating society. Here also he studied the methods of two of the Nation’s greatest advocates, Luther Martin and William Pinkney. And, strangely enough, this great lawyer in the making, began the practice of the law as a side issue to politics. In the quiet rural community of his nativity, where there was little litigation and no opportunity for professional distinction, he settled, for the sole purpose of entering the House of Delegates. This, however, in compliance with the wishes of his aggressively Federalistic father. Thus, at the age of twenty-two, we find young Taney responding to the roll-call as a pronounced Federalist of the school of Hamilton. It is noteworthy that he was defeated in the next election because of the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800.