Until 2017 , there was a statue of Roger B. Taney , Chief Justice of the United States , on the lawn of the State House . The statue was erected in 1872 . The statue of Taney , a Marylander , was controversial because of Taney 's support for slavery and his authorship of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in '' Dred Scott v. Sandford '' ( 1857 ) , which upheld the denial of citizenship to African Americans . As a result , a movement in support of removing the statue emerged . At first , the State House Trust &mdash; made up of the governor , the speaker of the state house , the president of the state senate , and the chair of the Maryland Historical Trust Board of Trustees &mdash; responded by adding interpretive plaques " explaining the controversy over his divisive opinion and its place in the evolution of the nation ’s stance toward slavery . " On the opposite side of the Capitol , the Trust also added a statue of Baltimore native Thurgood Marshall , the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice , and agreed in 2016 to place statues of abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass in the State House . In the wake of the Charlottesville car attack in 2017 , House Speaker Michael E. Busch called for the removal of the Taney statue , as did Governor Larry Hogan a day later . It was removed just after midnight on August 18 , 2017
Charlottesville car attack
Charlottesville car attack
Maryland State House