Prigg v. Pennsylvania

Edward Prigg, Plaintiff in Error, v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant in Error.

A writ of error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, brought under the twenty-fifth section of the judiciary act of 1789, to revise the judgment of that Court, on a case involving the construction of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Edward Prigg, a citizen of the state of Maryland, was indicted, for kidnapping, in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of York county, Pennsylvania, for. having forcibly taken and carried away, from that county, to the state of Maryland; a negro woman, named Margaret Morgan, with the design and intention of her being held, sold, and disposed of as a slave for life, contrary to a statute of Pennsylvania, passed on the twenty-sixth day of March, 1826. Edward Prigg pleaded not guilty, and the jury found a special verdict, on which judgment was rendered for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The case was removed to the Supreme Court of the state, and the judgment of the Court of Oyer and Terminer was, pro forma, affirmed: and the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States; the constitutionality of the law, under which the indictment was found, being denied by the counsel of the state of Maryland; which state had undertaken the defence for Edward Prigg, and prosecuted the writ of error. The cause was brought to the Supreme Court, with the sanction of both the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, with a view to have the questions in the case settled. Margaret Morgan was the slave for life, under the laws of Maryland, of Margaret Ashmore, a citizen of that state. In 1832 she escaped and fled from the state, into Pennsylvania. Edward Prigg, having been duly appointed the agent and attorney of Margaret Ashmore, and having obtained a warrant from a justice of the peace of York county, caused Margaret Morgan to be taken, as a fugitive from labour, by a constable of the state of Pennsylvania, before the magistrate, who refused to take cognisance of the case and thereupon Edward Prigg carried her and her children into Maryland, and delivered them to Margaret Ashmore. The children were born in Pennsylvania; one of them, more than a year after Margaret Morgan had filed and escaped from Maryland.

By the first section of the act of Assembly of Pennsylvania of 25th March, 1826, it is provided, that if any person shall by force and violence take and carry away, or shall by fraud or false pretence attempt to take, carry away, or seduce any negro or mulatto from any part of the commonwealth, with a design or intention of selling and disposing of, or keeping or detaining such negro or mulatto as a slave or servant for life, or for any other term whatsoever, such person, and all persons aiding and abetting him, shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a felony, and shall forfeit and pay a sum not less than five hundred nor more than three thousand dollars, and shall be sentenced to undergo a servitude for any term or terms of years, not less than seven years, nor exceeding twenty-one years; and shall be confined and kept at hard labour, etc. Other provisions are contained in the act; and it was passed in 1826, as declared in its title, to aid in carrying into effect the Constitution and laws of the United States, relating to fugitives from labour; and on the application to the legislature, by commissioners from the state of Maryland, with a view to meet the supposed wishes of the state of Maryland on the subject of fugitive slaves; but it had failed to produce the good effects intended.

By the Court:

It will, probably, be found, when we look to the character of the Constitution of the United States itself, the objects which it seeks to attain, the powers which it confers, the duties which it enjoins, and the rights which it secures; as well as to the known historical fact that many of its provisions were matters of compromise of opposing interests and opinions; that no uniform rule of interpretation can be applied, which may not allow, even if it does not positively demand, many modifications in its actual application to particular clauses. Perhaps the safest rule of interpretation, after all, will be found to be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties, and rights, with all the light and aids of contemporary history; and to give to the words of each just such operation and force, consistent with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed.

It is historically well known, that the object of the clause in the Constitution of the United States, relating to persons owing service and labour in one state escaping into other states, was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding states the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union, into which they might escape from the state where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title, was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding states; and indeed was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevailing in the non-slaveholding states, by preventing them from intermeddling with or obstructing or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves.

By the general law of nations, no nation is bound to recognise the state of slavery as to foreign slaves within its territorial dominions, when it is opposed to its own policy and institutions, in favour of the subjects of other nations where slavery is recognised. If it does it. it is as a matter of comity, and not as a matter of international right. The state of slavery is deemed to be a mere municipal regulation; founded upon, and limited to the range of the territorial laws.

The clause in the Constitution of the United States, relating to fugitives from labour, manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right, on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. Any state law or regulation, which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the rights of the owner to the immediate command of his service or labour, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom. The question can never be, how much he is discharged from, but whether he is discharged from any, by the natural or necessary operation of the state laws, or state regulations. The question is not one of quantity or degree, but of withholding or controlling the incidents of a positive right.

The owner of a fugitive slave has the same right to seize and take him in a state to which he has escaped or fled, that he had in the state from which he escaped: and it is well known that this right to seizure or recapture is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding states. The Court have not the slightest hesitation in holding, that under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of the slave is clothed with the authority in every state of the Union, to seize and recapture his slave; wherever he can do it without any breach of the peace, or illegal violence. In this sense, and to this extent, this clause in the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation, state or national.

The Constitution does not stop at a mere annunciation of the rights of the owner to seize his absconding or fugitive slave, in the state to which he may have fled. If it had done so, it would have left the owner of the slave, in many cases, utterly without any adequate redress.

The Constitution declares that the fugitive slave shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom service or labour may be due. It is exceedingly difficult, if not impracticable, to read this language, and not to feel that it contemplated some further remedial redress than that which might be administered at the hand of the owner himself. "A claim" is to be made.

"A claim," in a just juridical sense, is a demand of some matter as of right, made by one person upon another to do or to forbear to do some act or thing, as a matter of duty.

It cannot well be doubted, that the Constitution requires the delivery of the fugitive on the claim of the master and the natural inference certainly is, that the national government is clothed with the appropriate authority and functions to enforce it. The fundamental principle applicable to all cases of this sort would seem to be, that where the end is required, the means are given; and where the duty is enjoined, the ability to perform it is contemplated to exist on the part of the functionaries to whom it is intrusted.

The clause relating to fugitive slaves is found in the national Constitution, and not in that of any state. It might well be deemed an unconstitutional exercise of the power of interpretation, to insist that the states are bound to provide means to carry into effect the duties of the national government; nowhere delegated or intrusted to them by the Constitution. On the contrary, the natural, if not the necessary conclusion is, that the national government, in the absence of all positive provisions to the contrary, is bound, through its own proper departments, legislative, executive, or judiciary, as the case may require, to carry into effect all the right and duties imposed upon it by the Constitution.

A claim to a fugitive slave is a controversy in a case "arising under the Constitution of the United States," under the express delegation of judicial power given by that instrument. Congress, then, may call that power into activity, for the very purpose of giving effect to the right; and if so, then it may prescribe the mode and extent to which it shall be applied; and how and under what circumstances the proceedings shall afford a complete protection and guaranty of the right.

The provisions of the sections of the act of Congress of 12th February, 1793, on the subject of fugitive slaves, as well as relative to fugitives from justice, cover both the subjects; not because they exhaust the remedies, which may be applied by Congress to enforce the rights, if the provisions shall be found, in practice, not to attain the objects of the Constitution: but because they point out all the modes of attaining those objects which Congress have as yet deemed expedient and proper. If this is so, it would seem upon just principles of construction, that the legislation of Congress, if constitutional, must supersede all state legislation upon the same subject; and by necessary implication prohibit it. For if Congress have a constitutional power to regulate a particular subject, and they do actually regulate it in a given manner, and in a certain form; it cannot be that the state legislatures have a right to interfere. This doctrine was fully recognised in the case of Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. Rep. 1, 21, 22. Where Congress have exclusive power over a subject, it is not competent for state legislation, to add to the provisions of Congress on that subject.

Congress have, on various occasions, exercised powers which were necessary and proper, as means to carry into effect rights expressly given, and duties expressly enjoined by the Constitution. The end being required, it has been deemed a just and necessary implication, that the means to accomplish it are given also; or, in other words, that the power flows as a necessary means to accomplish the ends.

The constitutionality of the act of Congress relating to fugitives from labour, has been affirmed by the adjudications of the state tribunals, and by those of the Courts of the United States. If the question of the constitutionality of the law were one of doubtful construction, such long acquiescence in it, such contemporaneous expositions of it; and such extensive and uniform recognitions, would, in the judgment of the Court, entitle the question to be considered at rest. Congress, the executive, and the judiciary, have, upon various occasions, acted upon this as a sound and reasonable doctrine. Cited, Stuart v. Laird, 1 Cranch, 299; Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304; Cohens v. The Commonwealth of Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264.

The provisions of the act of 12th February, 1793, relative to fugitive slaves, is clearly constitutional in all its leading provisions; and, indeed, with the exception of that part which confers authority on state magistrates; is free from reasonable doubt or difficulty. As to the authority so conferred on state magistrates, while a difference of opinion exists, and may exist on this point in different states, whether state magistrates are bound to act under it, none is entertained by the Court, that state magistrates, may, if they choose, exercise the authority, unless prohibited by state legislation.

The power of legislation in relation to fugitives from labour, is exclusive in the national legislature. Cited, Sturgis v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 193.

The right to seize and retake fugitive slaves, and the duty to deliver them up, in whatever state of the Union they may be found, is under the Constitution recognised as 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.

The right and duty are coextensive and uniform in remedy and operation throughout the whole Union. The owner has the same security, and the same remedial justice, and the same exemption from state regulations and control, through however many states he may pass with the fugitive slave in his possession, in transit, to his domicile.

The Court are by no means to be understood, in any manner whatever, to doubt or to interfere with the police power belonging to the states, in virtue of their general sovereignty. That police power extends over all subjects within the territorial limits of the states, and has never been conceded to the United States. It is wholly distinguishable from the right and duty secured by the provision of the Constitution relating to fugitive slaves; which is exclusively derived from the Constitution, and obtains its whole efficiency therefrom.

The Court entertain no doubt whatsoever, that the states, in virtue of their general police power, possess full jurisdiction to arrest and restrain run-away slaves, and to remove them from their borders, and otherwise to secure themselves against their depredations, and evil example, as they certainly may do in cases of idlers, vagabonds, and paupers. The rights of the owners of fugitive slaves, are in no just sense interfered with or regulated by such a course; and in many cases they may be promoted by the exercise of the police power. Such regulations can never be permitted to interfere with or obstruct the just rights of the owner to reclaim his slave derived from the Constitution of the United States, or with the remedies prescribed by Congress to aid and enforce the same.

The act of the legislature of Pennsylvania upon which the indictment against Edward Prigg is founded, is unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish as a public offence against the state, the very act of seizing and removing a slave by his master, which the Constitution of the United States was designed to justify and uphold.

In error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. . . .

It is the opinion of this Court, that the act of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, upon which the indictment in this case is founded, is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and, therefore, void; and that the judgement of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upon the special verdict found in the case, ought to have been that the said Edward Prigg was not guilty. It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged by this Court, that the judgement of the said Supreme Court of Pennsylvania be, and the same is, hereby, reversed. And this Court, proceeding to render such judgement in the premises as the said Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ought to have rendered, do hereby order and adjudge that judgement upon the special verdict aforesaid be here entered, that the said Edward Prigg is not guilty in manner and form as is charged against him in the said indictment, and that he go thereof quit without day; and that this cause be remanded to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania with directions accordingly, so that such other proceeding may be had therein as to law and justice shall appertain.