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Prigg v. Pennsylvania

Supreme Court of the United States · 1842 · Civil Procedure

Constitutional LawFederalismFugitive SlavesSupremacy ClausePreemptionFugitive Slave Clauseexclusive federal powerpreemption

Facts

The indictment charged Prigg under a Pennsylvania statute of 1826 for taking and carrying away Margaret Morgan from Pennsylvania to Maryland with intent to keep or dispose of her as a slave. The special verdict found that Morgan was a slave for life under Maryland law, had escaped from Maryland into Pennsylvania, and that Prigg was the duly constituted agent of her Maryland owner. In 1837, Prigg had Morgan apprehended as a fugitive from labor by a Pennsylvania constable under a warrant from a Pennsylvania magistrate; the magistrate refused to take further cognizance of the case, and Prigg then removed Morgan and her children to Maryland and delivered them to the owner. One of the children had been born in Pennsylvania more than a year after Morgan's escape.

Issue

Whether Pennsylvania's 1826 statute, as applied to the seizure and removal of a fugitive slave by the owner's agent, was unconstitutional under the Fugitive Slave Clause and the federal Act of 1793. Also, whether Congress's power to legislate on this subject was exclusive, thereby superseding state legislation on the same subject.

Rule

The Fugitive Slave Clause of Article IV secures to the owner a positive and absolute right to the immediate possession and recaption of a fugitive slave in any state, unaffected by state law or regulation. Congress has constitutional authority to provide the remedy for enforcement of that right, and when Congress has legislated on the subject, its legislation supersedes and by necessary implication prohibits state legislation on the same subject; the power of legislation on this subject is exclusive in Congress. The owner may seize and recapture the slave wherever found, so long as it is done without breach of the peace or illegal violence.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Leah Morton, acting as the authorized agent of a plantation owner in Georgia, located a man alleged to owe labor under Georgia law living in Columbus, Ohio. After taking him into custody without illegal violence, Leah transported him to Georgia. Ohio then charged Leah under a state statute making it a felony to remove any alleged fugitive laborer from Ohio for the purpose of holding that person to service elsewhere.

Is the Ohio prosecution constitutional?

Explanation. The majority held that the constitutional provision secures a positive and unqualified right of the owner to reclaim a fugitive owing service, and that Congress's legislation on the subject supersedes state legislation on the same subject. A state law is void if it punishes the very act of seizure and removal that the Constitution was designed to justify and uphold. The result does not turn on prior state-court authorization.