Roger Brooke Taney ( /ˈtɔːni/ TAW-nee; March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold that office or sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most remembered for delivering the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), that ruled, among other things, that African Americans, having been considered inferior at the time the Constitution was drafted, were not part of the original community of citizens and could not be considered citizens of the United States.

Taney was a Jacksonian Democrat when he became Chief Justice. Described by his and President Andrew Jackson's critics as "[a] supple, cringing tool of Jacksonian power," Taney was a believer in states' rights but also the Union; a slaveholder who regretted the institution and manumitted his slaves. From Prince Frederick, Maryland, he had practiced law and politics simultaneously and succeeded in both. After abandoning Federalism as a losing cause, he rose to the top of the state's Jacksonian machine. As U.S. Attorney General (1831–1833) and then Secretary of the Treasury (1833–1834), Taney became one of Andrew Jackson's closest advisers.

Dred Scott (1795 – September 17, 1858), was an African American slave in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "the Dred Scott Decision." His case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, he had lived with his master Dr. John Emerson in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would improperly deprive Scott's owner of his legal property.

Brigadier General Roger Brooke, M.D. (June 14, 1878, Sandy Springs, Maryland – December 18, 1940) was a surgeon and U.S. Army medical corps officer. Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, is named for him.

Brooke was the son of Roger and Louisa (Thomas) Brooke. He attended George School in Newton, Pennsylvania, and later entered the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore, where he graduated in 1900. He joined the Medical Corps, United States Army, June 29, 1901, as a First Lieutenant. After graduating from the Army Medical School in 1902, he was assigned to the Philippine Islands for a tour of duty. He married Grace M. Macomb in 1905 and became a specialist in infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis.

Other tours of duty included Fort Bayard, New Mexico, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Attending Surgeon in Washington, D.C.. He spent the period of the World War in instruction work, serving from September 1917 to December 1918, first as Senior Instructor and later as Commanding Officer of the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where 10,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men were prepared for service with the armed forces. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.