Prigg v. Pennsylvania

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=Prigg v. Pennsylvania
ArgueDate=
ArgueYear=
DecideDate=March 1
DecideYear=1842
FullName=Edward Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
USVol=41
USPage=539
Citation=10 L. Ed. 1060; 1842 U.S. LEXIS 387
Prior=IN error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Subsequent=
Holding=Federal law is superior to state law.
SCOTUS=1842-1843
Majority=Story
JoinMajority=
Concurrence=Wayne
JoinConcurrence=
Concurrence2=
JoinConcurrence2=
Concurrence/Dissent=
JoinConcurrence/Dissent=
Dissent=Taney
JoinDissent=Thompson, Daniel, McLean
Dissent2=
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LawsApplied=

"Prigg v. Pennsylvania", ussc|41|539|1842, 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.

Federal and State Laws

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be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."Although the second clause above was superseded by the 13th Amendment, that amendment came into force only 77 years later, on December 6th 1865.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.

tate 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1788, the State of Pennsylvania passed an amendment to one of its laws ("An act for the gradual abolition of slavery", originally enacted March 1st 1780); this amendment stated that, "No negro or mulatto slave ...shall be removed out of this state, with the design and intention that the place of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."

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. [cite book
last = Amar
first = Akhil Reed
authorlink = Akhil Reed Amar
title = America's Constitution: A Biography
publisher = Random House
date = 2005
pages = 262
isbn = 1400062624 ] 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.

The Supreme Court's view

Prigg and his lawyer argued that the 1788 and 1826 Pennsylvania laws were unconstitutional:

*First, 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. The question which put the court in such a difficult position was whether Pennsylvania law violated the constitutional guarantee of fugitive slave return and the 1793 Act of Congress passed to implement it. Maryland and the South views the Pennsylvania as a palpable deprivation of their constitutionally guaranteed property rights. Pennsylvania and the North, replying on the ambiguity about a state's obligations to return fugitives, demanded the right to pass laws protecting free Negroes from the incursions of slave-catchers. [New, R Kent, "The Supreme Court under Marshall and Taney", [University of Connecticut,1968] , p. 125]

Writing for the Court, Justice Story improvised brilliantly in order to please both sections. He said that the Pennsylvania law was in violation of the clear, constitutional statutory obligation to return fugitives; the majority of the Court concurred,

"...and the South cheered. But the cheering stopped -- and Taney, Daniel, and Thompson dissented -- when Story declared that power over fugitives belonged exclusively to the national government...and when he went on to say that the Northern states were not obliged to, indeed could not constitutionally, assist in the return of slaves, he lost the support of the majority. " [Ibid., Newmyer, p.125]

Though 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, and would, 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." [http://www.slavenorth.com/fugitive.htm]

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.

In avoiding one crisis the Court prepared the way for a greater one. By discouraging state cooperation in returning fugitives, the Prigg decision undercut the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and made necessary the more brutal one of 1850. The South had been forced to look to the federal government for a national solution, and the Court had pledged itself in advance to support such a solution, despite that fact that the North would certainly be mobilized against it. In addition, people began to believe the Court, and only the Court, uniquely qualified to sooth the growing agitation over slavery. In the end, as a result of its decision, the Court had voluntarily left its sanctuary of non-involvement, entered the political thicket of slavery, and unwittingly taken the first step towards the debacle of Dred Scott v. Sandford.

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 41
*"Dred Scott v. Sandford" – related case

References

External links

*caselaw source
case="Prigg v. Pennsylvania", 41 U.S. 539 (1842)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./41/539/
justia=http://supreme.justia.com/us/41/539/