Prigg v. Pennsylvania 1842

• Author: Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
• Pages: 552-556

Contenidos

• Kidnapped.
• Federal Government Reigns Supreme.
• Impact.
• Suggestions for further reading.

Page 552

Appellant: Edward Prigg

Appellee: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Appellant's Claim: That the Pennsylvania law under which he was convicted for returning a runaway slave to her master was unconstitutional.

Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Messrs. Meredith and Nelson

Chief Lawyer for Appellee: Mr. Johnson, Attorney General of Pennsylvania

Justices for the Court: Henry Baldwin, John Catron, Peter Vivian Daniel, John McKinley, Joseph Story, Roger Brooke Taney, Smith Thompson, James Moore Wayne

Justices Dissenting: John McLean

Date of Decision: March 1, 1942

Decision: The Supreme Court struck down Pennsylvania's law and reversed Prigg's conviction.

Significance: On one level, Prigg strengthened the federal government's power and weakened state power. On another level, the decision was a victory for slavery, which would divide the country in a civil war nineteen years later.

Page 553

Margaret Morgan was an African American slave in Maryland in 1832. That year, Morgan escaped from her owner, Margaret Ashmore, and fled to Pennsylvania, which had abolished slavery. Morgan spent the next couple years in Pennsylvania raising her children, one of whom was born a free person in Pennsylvania.

When the United States wrote the Constitution in 1787, the states that allowed slavery wanted to make sure slaves could not escape to the free states. In Article IV of the Constitution, the framers said escaped slaves must be returned to their owners on demand. Six years later, Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave Act. The law said a slave owner could demand return of an escaped slave by getting a warrant from a federal or state judge or magistrate. The owner needed no evidence except his own word to prove that he owned an escaped slave.

In February 1837, Margaret Ashmore appointed attorney Edward Prigg as her agent to return Margaret Morgan. That month, Prigg went to see Thomas Henderson, a justice of the peace in York county, Pennsylvania, where Morgan was living. Prigg asked Henderson to arrest Morgan for delivery back to Ashmore. Henderson had the constable arrest Morgan and her children but then declined to take any more action.

Kidnapped

Prigg was determined to return Morgan to Ashmore. Using force and violence with help from three other men, Prigg captured Morgan on April 1, 1837 and took her to Maryland. There Morgan was forced back into...