Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Further Readings
Appellant
Edward Prigg
Appellee
State of Pennsylvania
Appellant's Claim
That laws passed by the U.S. Congress regulating interstate retrieval of fugitive slaves take precedence over state laws on the same subject.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Meredith, Nelson
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Johnson, Attorney General of Pennsylvania
Justices for the Court
Henry Baldwin, John Catron, Peter Vivian Daniel, John McKinley, Joseph Story(writing for the Court), Roger Brooke Taney, Smith Thompson, James Moore Wayne
Justices Dissenting
John McLean
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
1 March 1842
Decision
Upheld Prigg's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisions convicting Prigg of kidnapping under an 1826 Pennsylvania law.
Significance
The ruling upheld the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution in which federal laws take precedence over state laws when regulating the same activity. The Commerce Clause of the Constitution is one major avenue for the national government to exercise its authority over states. From the 1930s New Deal era through the 1970s the federal government significantly grew by increasingly regulating many facets of life. By the 1980s states' rights proponents began to reverse the trend. Debates over federal controls continued into the late 1990s focused on proposed national health care reforms.
At the center of issues intensively debated by the founders of the United States was federalism, the distribution of power between the federal and state governments. Dispute over the degree of centralization of political power in the United States highlighted by debates between Alexander Hamilton and JamesMadison led to formation of the first political parties in the nation. As a result, the Supremacy Clause was written into Article IV of the Constitution providing the primary basis for the federal government's power over states. The article states the "acts of the Federal Government are operational as supreme law throughout the Union . . . enforceable in all courts of the land. Thestates have no power to impede, burden, or in any manner control the operation of" federal law.
With slavery another major issue, the founders also reached compromise in which the Southern states could continue slavery while Congress received broad powers to regulate commerce. Article I of the Constitution states that "Congress shall have Power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States." The Constitution also contained a Fugitive Clause in that states had rights to retrieve fugitives, including fugitive slaves, fromother states to which they had fled. However, the Constitution did not describe the responsibility of the state receiving the request or how the request should be made.
Problems soon arose. In 1791, Pennsylvania requested the return of a fugitivefrom Virginia, but Virginia chose not to comply. Two years later Congress responded with passage of an act more fully addressing apprehension of fugitives from justice and slaves escaping the service of their masters. The 1793 fugitive slave law allowed for their arrest without a warrant, relying only on the oath of the owner or their agent regarding their claim. In 1826, Pennsylvania passed a law in direct conflict by requiring a warrant and testimony of "indifferent witnesses." The federal law protected slave owners "from all unnecessary delay and expense" while state law allowed for the alleged fugitive to ask for a delay while a court heard their case. The owner could be chargedwith court expenses. Whereas the federal law provided penalties for the hindering owners, the Pennsylvania law only gave the owner a right to seek damages.
Given the association of slavery with commerce in the nation's early years, slavery cases were considered by the Supreme Court as commerce issues focusedon property rights rather than human rights. In 1825 in the first slave casebefore the Court, The Antelope, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote thatin "claims in which the sacred rights of liberty and of property come in conflict with each other . . . this Court must not yield to feelings which mightseduce it from the path of duty, but must obey the mandates of the law." Theproperty rights of slave owners prevailed in the courts.
Regarding division of power between the federal government and states, a number of cases prior to 1840 were decided favoring states' rights to govern their own jurisdictions with minimal influence from the federal government. However, beginning in 1840 the supremacy of the federal government began to be defined. In Holmes v. Jennison, the Court ruled states did not have powerto engage in foreign affairs. Next, the Court ruled that federal courts could overrule state court interpretations of state law. Increasingly, questionsof states' authority were tied to questions of slavery. In Groves v. Slaughter in 1841 the Court ruled states had the right to exclude slavery.
Owing Service
Margaret Morgan was a black slave in the state of Maryland "owing service" toMargaret Ashmore. In 1832, Morgan fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Over ayear after arriving in Pennsylvania, Morgan gave birth to a child. Several years later, in February of 1837, Ashmore hired attorney Edward Prigg "to seize and arrest the said negro woman." Prigg proceeded to obtain an arrest warrant from a justice of the peace in York County, Pennsylvania for Morgan and her children. A constable for the county promptly apprehended them, but upon delivery to the court the justice of the peace refused to take further action for their return. Prigg then took action on his own and brought Morgan and thechildren back to Ashmore in Maryland. As a result, Prigg was arrested and charged with kidnapping under the 1826 Pennsylvania law.
In 1839, a jury in a lower court found Prigg guilty of violating the Pennsylvania law. Prigg appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania arguing the Pennsylvania state law violated the U.S. Constitution by creating procedures that obstructed the retrieval of fugitive slaves and therefore was invalid. ThePennsylvania Supreme Court, however, affirmed the lower court's ruling. Priggnext took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court where the state of Maryland also argued on his behalf that the 1826 Pennsylvania law was constitutionally invalid.
Federal Supremacy
Justice Story, writing for the Court, noted, "Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations." Indescribing the Fugitive Clause of the Constitution, Story wrote "that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slave-holding statesthe complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union into which they might escape." Story added that without the clause, each non-slave state could "have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits . . . and . . . created the most bitter animosities." Story found the "clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no statelaw or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain." Regarding the supremacy of the 1793 federal fugitive law, Story found that Congress had acted "within the scope of the constitutional authority" and that ifstate laws on the same subject, particularly those contrary to the intent ofthe federal law, were allowed to stand "confusion . . . would be endless." Story found that since the right of owners to retrieve fugitive slaves was provided in the Constitution, it was "an absolute, positive right and duty, pervading the whole Union with an equal and supreme force, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by state sovereignty or state legislation." Therefore, Story repeated the words of Chief Justice John Marshall in a previous case by stating "the subject is as completely taken from the state legislatures, as if they hadbeen forbidden to act."
In conclusion, Story wrote that "the inherent and sovereign power of a state,to protect its jurisdiction and the peace of its citizens . . . shall not conflict with a defined power of the federal government." The federal law was clearly constitutionally valid and the Pennsylvania law was unconstitutional and void as argued by Prigg and Maryland. Edward Prigg was found not guilty and the case remanded back to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Impact
The Prigg ruling maintained that federal law held supremacy over statelaws regarding fugitive slaves. It also served to weaken the ability of states to protect peoples within their boundaries and led to greater sectional conflict over slavery. Over the next 15 years it became clear the slavery question could not be resolved in the courts. In both Jones v. Van Zandt (1848) and Ableman v. Booth (1859), the Court reaffirmed the 1793 federal fugitive slave law and the property rights of slave owners. The Court maintained its role was to uphold the laws and that the moral question of slaverywas "a political question, settled by each state for itself . . . and which we possess no authority as a judicial body to modify or overrule."
The primary legal question addressed by Prigg was the separate rightsof states and Congress to regulate certain activities. Though the Court affirmed the supremacy of federal law in several cases in the early 1840s, an eraof limited federal government, however, continued until 1932 with the beginnings of New Deal programs during the depression. The judicial doctrine of "preemption" in which Congress could enact laws that took precedence over existing state laws on the same subject was soon established further clarifying thesupremacy of federal government. In the Hines v. Davidowitz (1941) case, the Court ruled that federal law regulating the registration of aliens preempted state law. By the 1960s regulatory laws were increasingly passed by both Congress and the states making preemption legal cases more frequent. An example was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in which a federal law preempted state laws by imposing consistent national anti-discrimination standards.
After decades of increasing centralized power held by the federal government,in the mid-1980s the Court began to roll back federal supremacy. This trendtowards states' rights was further fueled by the 1994 election of a Republican-controlled Congress that campaigned against centralized government. A key target was the Commerce Clause of the Constitution giving Congress power to regulate matters involving the national economy. In United States v. Lopez (1995) the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause did not give Congress power to ban guns near schools as the government argued. The ruling was the firstin six decades to hold that Congress could not regulate a private activity under the Commerce Clause. Despite this increased support for states' rights in the 1990s, several factors led to increased efforts at federal preemptionsincluding the explosion in telecommunications technology. Increased electronic commerce, including Internet shopping and banking, posed major threats to state sales tax schemes and traditional state regulation of banks. Again, thedebate over states' rights versus centralized federal government control erupted as it had over two centuries ago with the Hamilton-Madison debates.
Related Cases
Edward Prigg
Appellee
State of Pennsylvania
Appellant's Claim
That laws passed by the U.S. Congress regulating interstate retrieval of fugitive slaves take precedence over state laws on the same subject.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Meredith, Nelson
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Johnson, Attorney General of Pennsylvania
Justices for the Court
Henry Baldwin, John Catron, Peter Vivian Daniel, John McKinley, Joseph Story(writing for the Court), Roger Brooke Taney, Smith Thompson, James Moore Wayne
Justices Dissenting
John McLean
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
1 March 1842
Decision
Upheld Prigg's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisions convicting Prigg of kidnapping under an 1826 Pennsylvania law.
Significance
The ruling upheld the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution in which federal laws take precedence over state laws when regulating the same activity. The Commerce Clause of the Constitution is one major avenue for the national government to exercise its authority over states. From the 1930s New Deal era through the 1970s the federal government significantly grew by increasingly regulating many facets of life. By the 1980s states' rights proponents began to reverse the trend. Debates over federal controls continued into the late 1990s focused on proposed national health care reforms.
At the center of issues intensively debated by the founders of the United States was federalism, the distribution of power between the federal and state governments. Dispute over the degree of centralization of political power in the United States highlighted by debates between Alexander Hamilton and JamesMadison led to formation of the first political parties in the nation. As a result, the Supremacy Clause was written into Article IV of the Constitution providing the primary basis for the federal government's power over states. The article states the "acts of the Federal Government are operational as supreme law throughout the Union . . . enforceable in all courts of the land. Thestates have no power to impede, burden, or in any manner control the operation of" federal law.
With slavery another major issue, the founders also reached compromise in which the Southern states could continue slavery while Congress received broad powers to regulate commerce. Article I of the Constitution states that "Congress shall have Power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States." The Constitution also contained a Fugitive Clause in that states had rights to retrieve fugitives, including fugitive slaves, fromother states to which they had fled. However, the Constitution did not describe the responsibility of the state receiving the request or how the request should be made.
Problems soon arose. In 1791, Pennsylvania requested the return of a fugitivefrom Virginia, but Virginia chose not to comply. Two years later Congress responded with passage of an act more fully addressing apprehension of fugitives from justice and slaves escaping the service of their masters. The 1793 fugitive slave law allowed for their arrest without a warrant, relying only on the oath of the owner or their agent regarding their claim. In 1826, Pennsylvania passed a law in direct conflict by requiring a warrant and testimony of "indifferent witnesses." The federal law protected slave owners "from all unnecessary delay and expense" while state law allowed for the alleged fugitive to ask for a delay while a court heard their case. The owner could be chargedwith court expenses. Whereas the federal law provided penalties for the hindering owners, the Pennsylvania law only gave the owner a right to seek damages.
Given the association of slavery with commerce in the nation's early years, slavery cases were considered by the Supreme Court as commerce issues focusedon property rights rather than human rights. In 1825 in the first slave casebefore the Court, The Antelope, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote thatin "claims in which the sacred rights of liberty and of property come in conflict with each other . . . this Court must not yield to feelings which mightseduce it from the path of duty, but must obey the mandates of the law." Theproperty rights of slave owners prevailed in the courts.
Regarding division of power between the federal government and states, a number of cases prior to 1840 were decided favoring states' rights to govern their own jurisdictions with minimal influence from the federal government. However, beginning in 1840 the supremacy of the federal government began to be defined. In Holmes v. Jennison, the Court ruled states did not have powerto engage in foreign affairs. Next, the Court ruled that federal courts could overrule state court interpretations of state law. Increasingly, questionsof states' authority were tied to questions of slavery. In Groves v. Slaughter in 1841 the Court ruled states had the right to exclude slavery.
Owing Service
Margaret Morgan was a black slave in the state of Maryland "owing service" toMargaret Ashmore. In 1832, Morgan fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Over ayear after arriving in Pennsylvania, Morgan gave birth to a child. Several years later, in February of 1837, Ashmore hired attorney Edward Prigg "to seize and arrest the said negro woman." Prigg proceeded to obtain an arrest warrant from a justice of the peace in York County, Pennsylvania for Morgan and her children. A constable for the county promptly apprehended them, but upon delivery to the court the justice of the peace refused to take further action for their return. Prigg then took action on his own and brought Morgan and thechildren back to Ashmore in Maryland. As a result, Prigg was arrested and charged with kidnapping under the 1826 Pennsylvania law.
In 1839, a jury in a lower court found Prigg guilty of violating the Pennsylvania law. Prigg appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania arguing the Pennsylvania state law violated the U.S. Constitution by creating procedures that obstructed the retrieval of fugitive slaves and therefore was invalid. ThePennsylvania Supreme Court, however, affirmed the lower court's ruling. Priggnext took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court where the state of Maryland also argued on his behalf that the 1826 Pennsylvania law was constitutionally invalid.
Federal Supremacy
Justice Story, writing for the Court, noted, "Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations." Indescribing the Fugitive Clause of the Constitution, Story wrote "that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slave-holding statesthe complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union into which they might escape." Story added that without the clause, each non-slave state could "have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits . . . and . . . created the most bitter animosities." Story found the "clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no statelaw or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain." Regarding the supremacy of the 1793 federal fugitive law, Story found that Congress had acted "within the scope of the constitutional authority" and that ifstate laws on the same subject, particularly those contrary to the intent ofthe federal law, were allowed to stand "confusion . . . would be endless." Story found that since the right of owners to retrieve fugitive slaves was provided in the Constitution, it was "an absolute, positive right and duty, pervading the whole Union with an equal and supreme force, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by state sovereignty or state legislation." Therefore, Story repeated the words of Chief Justice John Marshall in a previous case by stating "the subject is as completely taken from the state legislatures, as if they hadbeen forbidden to act."
In conclusion, Story wrote that "the inherent and sovereign power of a state,to protect its jurisdiction and the peace of its citizens . . . shall not conflict with a defined power of the federal government." The federal law was clearly constitutionally valid and the Pennsylvania law was unconstitutional and void as argued by Prigg and Maryland. Edward Prigg was found not guilty and the case remanded back to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Impact
The Prigg ruling maintained that federal law held supremacy over statelaws regarding fugitive slaves. It also served to weaken the ability of states to protect peoples within their boundaries and led to greater sectional conflict over slavery. Over the next 15 years it became clear the slavery question could not be resolved in the courts. In both Jones v. Van Zandt (1848) and Ableman v. Booth (1859), the Court reaffirmed the 1793 federal fugitive slave law and the property rights of slave owners. The Court maintained its role was to uphold the laws and that the moral question of slaverywas "a political question, settled by each state for itself . . . and which we possess no authority as a judicial body to modify or overrule."
The primary legal question addressed by Prigg was the separate rightsof states and Congress to regulate certain activities. Though the Court affirmed the supremacy of federal law in several cases in the early 1840s, an eraof limited federal government, however, continued until 1932 with the beginnings of New Deal programs during the depression. The judicial doctrine of "preemption" in which Congress could enact laws that took precedence over existing state laws on the same subject was soon established further clarifying thesupremacy of federal government. In the Hines v. Davidowitz (1941) case, the Court ruled that federal law regulating the registration of aliens preempted state law. By the 1960s regulatory laws were increasingly passed by both Congress and the states making preemption legal cases more frequent. An example was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in which a federal law preempted state laws by imposing consistent national anti-discrimination standards.
After decades of increasing centralized power held by the federal government,in the mid-1980s the Court began to roll back federal supremacy. This trendtowards states' rights was further fueled by the 1994 election of a Republican-controlled Congress that campaigned against centralized government. A key target was the Commerce Clause of the Constitution giving Congress power to regulate matters involving the national economy. In United States v. Lopez (1995) the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause did not give Congress power to ban guns near schools as the government argued. The ruling was the firstin six decades to hold that Congress could not regulate a private activity under the Commerce Clause. Despite this increased support for states' rights in the 1990s, several factors led to increased efforts at federal preemptionsincluding the explosion in telecommunications technology. Increased electronic commerce, including Internet shopping and banking, posed major threats to state sales tax schemes and traditional state regulation of banks. Again, thedebate over states' rights versus centralized federal government control erupted as it had over two centuries ago with the Hamilton-Madison debates.
Related Cases
- The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66 (1825).
- Jones v. Van Zandt, 5 How. 215 (1848).
- Ableman v. Booth, 62 U.S. 506 (1859).
- Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52 (1941).
- United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).
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