I was doing some reading on the Dred Scott case today. Roger B. Taney was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when the Dred Scott case was adjudicated. He wrote the majority opinion which declared that slaves were personal property and did not have the right to sue in federal court. The decision also stated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. I also discovered that Taney County (Branson) was named after this Roger B. Taney (and hence lake Taneycomo). It should be noted that the county was organized in 1837. Taney had been the Chief Justice for about a year. The infamous Dred Scott decision would not be handed down until 1857, twenty years later. I thought this was an intriguing bit of Ozark trivia.
