Prigg v. Pennsylvania 1842

Prigg v. Pennsylvania was the fi rst decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to interpret the fugitive slave clause of the U.S. Constitution and also the fi rst decision to consider the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. In his “opinion of the Court,” Justice Joseph Story of Massachusetts reached six major conclusions: that the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was constitutional in all its provisions; that no state could pass any law that added requirements to the federal law or impeded the return of fugitive slaves, such as requiring that a state judge hear the case; that masters or their agents had a constitutional right of selfhelp (the technical term was “recaption”) to seize any fugitive slave anywhere and to bring that slave back to the South and that this could be done without complying with the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act or even bringing the alleged fugitive before a judge; that if a captured fugitive slave was brought before a judge, he or she was entitled to only a summary proceeding to determine whether he or she was the person described in the papers provided by the master; that a judge was not to decide whether the person before him was a slave or free but only whether he or she was the person described in the papers; and that state offi cials should enforce but could not be required to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.