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Prigg v. Pennsylvania
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| Prigg v. Pennsylvania | |
| Reference: 41 U.S. 539 | |
| Term: 1842 | |
| Important Dates | |
| Argued: February 8-10, 1842 Decided: March 1, 1842 | |
| Outcome | |
| Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned | |
| Majority | |
| Henry Baldwin • John Catron • John McKinley • Joseph Story | |
| Concurring | |
| Roger Brooke Taney • Smith Thompson • James Moore Wayne • Peter Vivian Daniel | |
| Dissenting | |
| John McLean | |
Prigg v. Pennsylvania was a case decided on March 1, 1842, by the United States Supreme Court that decided federal law is superior to state law, but states are not required to enforce federal law. The case concerned the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and a Pennsylvania state law forbidding state officials from cooperating in the return of fugitive slaves. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a slave catcher, Edward Prigg, who was found guilty of violating Pennsylvania’s 1788 law criminalizing the removal of free blacks living in Pennsylvania for the purpose of sale.[1]
Why it matters: The Supreme Court's decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania declared that federal law is superior to state law, but states are not required to enforce federal law. Justice Joseph Story argued that the Supremacy Clause and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 superseded the Pennsylvania state law criminalizing slave catching. However, Justice Joseph Story also wrote that state governments did not have to assist in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. To read more on Justice Story’s understanding of Federalism, click here. To read more about the aftermath of the case, click here.
Background
Edward Prigg, the defendant in the case, was a Maryland-based slave catcher indicted under Pennsylvania's 1826 Personal Liberty Law. Prigg captured a woman named Margaret Morgan and her children who lived in Pennsylvania.[2]
Margaret Morgan was freed by her previous owner but the successor to his estate did not recognize her freedom and sent Prigg and other slave catchers to capture her. Although she and her children did not qualify as fugitive slaves, they were all captured and sold to a slave trader.[2]
Prigg was arrested for breaking Pennsylvania's Personal Liberty Law, but appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law was in conflict with the federal Fugitive Slave Law, and that the state law was therefore invalid.[1]
Oral argument
Oral argument was held from February 8-10, 1842. The case was decided on March 1, 1793.[1]
Decision
The Supreme Court ruled that federal law is superior to state law, but states are not required to enforce federal law. Therefore, Prigg could not be convicted under the Pennsylvania state law, but the Fugitive Slave Act did not require the states to use state enforcement power to carry the law into effect.[1]
In Prigg v. Pennsylvania Justice Joseph Story delivered the majority opinion and was joined by Henry Baldwin, John Catron, and John McKinley.
Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote a concurring opinion and was joined by Smith Thompson, James Moore Wayne, and Peter Vivian Daniel.
Justice John McLean wrote a dissenting opinion.
Opinions
| Federalism |
|---|
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| •Key terms • Court cases •Major arguments • State responses to federal mandates • Federalism by the numbers • Index of articles about federalism |
Majority opinion
Chief Justice Joseph Story argued that the case one of the most delicate and important cases the Supreme Court had yet seen:
| “ | Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations; and few upon which the public at large may be presumed to feel a more profound and pervading interest. We have accordingly given them our most deliberate examination; and it has become my duty to state the result to which we have arrived, and the reasoning by which it is supported.[3] | ” |
Justice Story considered two clauses of the Constitution respecting fugitive slaves. He argued that the Fugitive Slave Clause was intended to stop states in the North from obstructing the rights of slave owners:
| “ | Historically, it is well known, that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding states the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union into which they might escape from the state where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding states; and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding states, by preventing them from intermeddling with, or obstructing, or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves.[3] | ” |
Justice Story wrote that if the Fugitive Slave Clause was not included the Northern states would have declared free all runaway slaves within their limits:
| “ | If the Constitution had not contained this clause, every non-slaveholding state in the Union would have been at liberty to have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits, and to have given them entire immunity and protection against the claims of their masters; a course which would have created the most bitter animosities, and engendered perpetual strife between the different states. The clause was, therefore, of the last importance to the safety and security of the southern states; and could not have been surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted into the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it; a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity.[3] | ” |
Justice Story argued that the Fugitive Slave Clause was rooted in a positive right to property, and that the Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law was in conflict with this protection of property:
| “ | The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any state law or regulation
|
” |
Although the Fugitive Slave Clause attempted to protect the right to own slaves, the principle of federalism protected the states from actively assisting southern masters recapture slaves. Justice Story wrote that the states did not have to use their own executive powers to capture runaway slaves:
| “ | [W]hether state magistrates are bound to act under it, none is entertained by the court that state magistrates, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless prohibited by state legislation”[3] | ” |
Concurring opinion
Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote a concurring opinion in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Justice Taney argued that states could pass fugitive slave laws which did not interfere with the property rights of slave owners nor the property rights of northern citizens. This conflicted with Justice Story's understanding of federalism, but agreed with the holding that declared the Pennsylvania state law unconstitutional. Although Justice Story held that the Pennsylvania law was unconstitutional, he argued that it was the exclusive federal power to reclaim fugitive slaves under the Fugitive Slave Clause.[1]
Dissenting opinion
Justice John McLean wrote a dissenting opinion in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Justice McLean argued that state police powers could protect free black citizens from being recaptured as fugitive slaves, and defended Pennsylvania's Personal Liberty Law as constitutional. He argued that state police powers should “protect its jurisdiction and the peace of its citizens in any and every mode which its discretion shall dictate, which shall not conflict with a defined power of the Federal Government.”[1]
Aftermath
| Federalism |
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| •Key terms • Court cases •Major arguments • State responses to federal mandates • Federalism by the numbers • Index of articles about federalism |
Although the Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law was ruled unconstitutional, Justice Story's majority opinion argued that states could refuse to assist slave owners in reclaiming slaves, and that Congress could only compel federal judges and officers to enforce the Fugitive Slave clause. Therefore, a number of states began to pass new personal liberty laws directing state officers and courts to refuse to enforce the Fugitive Slave clause. Congress later passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850.[2]
See also
External links
- Full text of case syllabus and opinions (Justia)
- Oyez Supreme Court Resources
- Search Google News for this topic
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Justia, "Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842)," accessed June 29, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Constitution Center, Blog, accessed June 29, 2022
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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