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Alderwoman Revives Debate Over Taney Statue At City Hall

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) -- A Frederick alderwoman is renewing a call for removing a statue of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney from City Hall.

Taney wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision upholding slavery. The ruling became a catalyst for the Civil War.  It called black people "beings of an inferior order."

Taney practiced law in Frederick from 1801 to 1823.

The Frederick News-Post reports that Alderwoman Donna Kuzemchak on Thursday proposed moving the statue to another location, such as the private museum in Taney's former home.

She says the action would correct the city's mistake in honoring a man who took an "extreme pro-slavery position."

The last public debate about the statue ended with a compromise in 2009 when the city added a plaque explaining the Dred Scott decision.

(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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