Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Significance, Owing Service, Federal Supremacy, Impact, Further Readings

Prigg v. Pennsylvania - 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 facet…

Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Further Readings

Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Owing Service

Margaret Morgan was a black slave in the state of Maryland "owing service" to Margaret Ashmore. In 1832, Morgan fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Over a year 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 justi…

Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Federal Supremacy

Justice Story, writing for the Court, noted, "Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations." In describing the Fugitive Clause of the Constitution, Story wrote "that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slave-holding states the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in t…

Prigg v. Pennsylvania - Impact

The Prigg ruling maintained that federal law held supremacy over state laws 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 (18…