Prigg v. Pennsylvania
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| Prigg v. Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||
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| Decided March 1, 1842 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney Associate Justices: Joseph Story, Smith Thompson, John McLean, Henry Baldwin, James Moore Wayne, John Catron, John McKinley, Peter Vivian Daniel |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Story Concurrence by: Wayne Dissent by: Taney Joined by: Thompson, Daniel, McLean |
Prigg v. Pennsylvania, , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Federal law is superior to State law, and overturned the conviction of Edward Prigg as a result.
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[edit] Federal and State Laws
[edit] Federal Law
In June 1788, the Constitution of the United States came into force, having been ratified by nine states (see History of the United States Constitution). Article IV, Section 2, of the Constitution contained two statements about the legality of fleeing justice, creditors, owners, or other agencies, across state borders:
- A person charged in any state with treason, felony or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.
- No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
Although the second clause above was superseded by the 13th Amendment, that amendment came into force only 77 years later, on December 6th 1865.
On February 12th 1793, the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793.
[edit] State law in Pennsylvania
On March 29th 1788, the State of Pennsylvania passed an amendment to one of its laws (An act for the gradual abolition of slavery, originally enacted March 1st 1780); this amendment stated that, No negro or mulatto slave ...shall be removed out of this state, with the design and intention that the place of abode or residence of such slave or servant shall be thereby altered or changed.
On March 25th 1826, the State of Pennsylvania passed a further law, which stated in part:
If any person or persons shall, from and after the passing of this act, by force and violence, take and carry away, or cause to be taken or carried away, and shall, by fraud or false pretense, seduce, or cause to be seduced, or shall attempt so to take, carry away or seduce, any negro or mulatto, from any part or parts of this commonwealth, to any other place or places whatsoever, out of this commonwealth, with a design and intention of selling and disposing of, or of causing to be sold, or of keeping and detaining, or of causing to be kept and detained, such negro or mulatto, as a slave or servant for life, or for any term whatsoever, every such person or persons, his or their aiders or abettors, shall on conviction thereof, in any court of this commonwealth having competent jurisdiction, be deemed guilty of a felony.
[edit] Case background
During the year of 1832, a black woman named Margaret Morgan moved to Pennsylvania from Maryland, where she had once been a slave to a man named John Ashmore. In Maryland, she had lived in virtual freedom but had never been formally emancipated.[1] Ashmore's heirs eventually decided to claim her as a slave and hired slavecatcher Edward Prigg to recover her.
On April 1st 1837, Edward Prigg led an assault and abduction on Morgan in York County, Pennsylvania. They took Morgan to Maryland, intending to sell her as a slave (her children, one of whom was born a free citizen in Pennsylvania, were also captured and were sold). The four men involved in the abduction were arraigned under the 1826 act. Prigg pleaded not guilty, and argued that he had been duly appointed by John Ashmore to arrest and return Morgan to her owner in Maryland. However, in a ruling on May 22nd 1839, the Court of Quarter Sessions of York County convicted him.
Prigg appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that the Pennsylvania law arrogated the State powers over and above those allowed by the U.S. Constitution.
[edit] The Supreme Court's view
Prigg and his lawyer argued that the 1788 and 1826 Pennsylvania laws were unconstitutional:
- Firstly, because of the injunction in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution that No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due..
- Secondly, because, the exercise of Federal legislation, such as that undertaken by Congress in passing the act of the February 12th 1793, supersedes any State law.
As a consequence, they argued, the 1788 Pennsylvania law, in all its provisions applicable to this case, should be voided.
Writing for the Court, Justice Story reversed the conviction and held the Pennsylvania law unconstitutional as a denial of both the right of slaveholders to recover their slaves under Article IV and the Federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, which trumped the state law per the Supremacy Clause. Six justices wrote separate opinions.
However, while Story ruled the Pennsylvania laws unconstitutional, his opinion left the door open for further such actions by the state in his writing:
As to the authority so conferred upon state magistrates [to deal with runaway slaves], while a difference of opinion has existed, and may exist still on the point, in different states, whether state magistrates are bound to act under it; none is entertained by this Court that state magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless prohibited by state legislation - Justice Story (emphasis added)
This last phrase - "unless prohibited by state legislation" - became the impetus for a number of personal liberties laws enacted by Pennsylvania and the other Northern states. These laws did as the Court had suggested - they prohibited state officials from interfering with runaway slaves in any capacity. Runaways could not be caught or incarcerated, cases could not be heard, and no assistance could be offered to those wishing to recapture slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act still stood, but only federal agents could enforce it.
Such an emphatic refusal to uphold the Fugitive Slave Act was viewed as a brazen violation of the federal compact by the Southern states. One letter to South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun stated that the new personal liberties laws "rendered slave property utterly insecure" and was a "flagrant violation of the spirit of the U.S. Constitution."[1]
It was these laws that led to The Compromise of 1850 - California could enter the Union as a free state, but the Northern states would have to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act within their own borders.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Amar, Akhil Reed (2005). America's Constitution: A Biography. Random House, 262. ISBN 1400062624.
