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 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 the children 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. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, affirmed the lower court's ruling. Prigg next 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.