- Joined
- May 12, 2019
- Messages
- 7,116
- Reaction score
- 4,148
Originally the sense of unity of the States was strong, but friendly to slavery. Fugitive slaves were returned promptly. As the Northern States evolved into the Free States, issues arose about protecting their black citizens. In the South, all blacks were presumptively slaves. In the North, that did not exist and the opposite presumption existed: all blacks were presumptively free. The Civil War will grow out of that clash of presumptions. This clash will lead to a breakdown of comity, where States once respected each other's laws but later did not and made SCOTUS the final arbitrator. Eventually, everyone lost faith in SCOTUS. This thread will take a look at Prigg v Pennsylvania and especially Justice Story from a Free State but that sided with the slaveholders.
From
Justice Story, Slavery, and the Natural Law Foundations of American Constitutionalism
Christopher L.M. Eisgruber
Justice Joseph Story proclaimed his opinion for the Supreme Court in Prigg v. Pennsylvania to be a "triumph of freedom."' The Court's decision in that 1842 case held unconstitutional a Pennsylvania law opposed by slaveholders because the statute interposed procedural barriers to the recapture of escaped slaves. Few commentators have shared Story's assessment of his opinion, and in recent years several prominent scholars have criticized Story's treatment of the slavery question on both ethical and jurisprudential grounds.
I. THE CASE OF Prigg v. Pennsylvania
A. Facts of the Case
Article IV, section 2, paragraph 3 of the Constitution provides" that "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or La- bour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." Although the cleverly worded clause neither expressly mentions nor implicitly authorizes slavery,5 the clear intent of the clause was to give the Southern states some guarantee that slaveowners could recapture slaves who had escaped to the North. But as Thomas Morris points out, the clause is less clear about the means by which such recapture should occur, and about who, if anyone, should legislatively implement the clause. Is the recapture of escaped slaves a matter for Congress, the states, or both?6 The question was hotly disputed prior to the Civil War. The Southern states were interested primarily in effective and efficient processes of recapture. This interest conflicted with that of the Northern states, where citizens sought to protect free blacks and (at least in some circles) emancipate enslaved blacks. Prigg presented to the Supreme Court the question of who had legislative authority to sort these interests and enforce the clause.
Footnotes.
3 My treatment of this topic owes much to Herbert J. Storing, Slavery and the Moral
Foundations of the American Republic, in Robert H. Horwitz, ed., The Moral Foundations
of the American Republic 214 (1977) ("Slavery and the Republic"). Storing's essay men-
tions, without discussing in detail, Story's opinion in Prigg. Id. at 218.
4 The provision is, of course, now a nullity because of the enactment of the thirteenth
amendment.
I It would be consistent with the words of the fugitive slave clause to argue that those
persons held to service or labour in one state may not be freed in another, but that no
persons may legitimately be enslaved in any state. See Storing, Slavery and the Republic at
221, 223-25 (cited in note 3).
' Thomas D. Morris, Free Men All 18 (1974).
From
Justice Story, Slavery, and the Natural Law Foundations of American Constitutionalism
Christopher L.M. Eisgruber
Justice Joseph Story proclaimed his opinion for the Supreme Court in Prigg v. Pennsylvania to be a "triumph of freedom."' The Court's decision in that 1842 case held unconstitutional a Pennsylvania law opposed by slaveholders because the statute interposed procedural barriers to the recapture of escaped slaves. Few commentators have shared Story's assessment of his opinion, and in recent years several prominent scholars have criticized Story's treatment of the slavery question on both ethical and jurisprudential grounds.
I. THE CASE OF Prigg v. Pennsylvania
A. Facts of the Case
Article IV, section 2, paragraph 3 of the Constitution provides" that "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or La- bour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." Although the cleverly worded clause neither expressly mentions nor implicitly authorizes slavery,5 the clear intent of the clause was to give the Southern states some guarantee that slaveowners could recapture slaves who had escaped to the North. But as Thomas Morris points out, the clause is less clear about the means by which such recapture should occur, and about who, if anyone, should legislatively implement the clause. Is the recapture of escaped slaves a matter for Congress, the states, or both?6 The question was hotly disputed prior to the Civil War. The Southern states were interested primarily in effective and efficient processes of recapture. This interest conflicted with that of the Northern states, where citizens sought to protect free blacks and (at least in some circles) emancipate enslaved blacks. Prigg presented to the Supreme Court the question of who had legislative authority to sort these interests and enforce the clause.
Footnotes.
3 My treatment of this topic owes much to Herbert J. Storing, Slavery and the Moral
Foundations of the American Republic, in Robert H. Horwitz, ed., The Moral Foundations
of the American Republic 214 (1977) ("Slavery and the Republic"). Storing's essay men-
tions, without discussing in detail, Story's opinion in Prigg. Id. at 218.
4 The provision is, of course, now a nullity because of the enactment of the thirteenth
amendment.
I It would be consistent with the words of the fugitive slave clause to argue that those
persons held to service or labour in one state may not be freed in another, but that no
persons may legitimately be enslaved in any state. See Storing, Slavery and the Republic at
221, 223-25 (cited in note 3).
' Thomas D. Morris, Free Men All 18 (1974).