Prigg v. Pennsylvania

Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 1, 1842
Full case name	Edward Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Citations	41 U.S. 539 (more) 16 Pet. 539; 10 L. Ed. 1060; 1842 U.S. LEXIS 387
Case history
Prior	In error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Holding
Federal law is superior to state law, but states are not required to use their resources to enforce federal law.
Court membership
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney Associate Justices Joseph Story · Smith Thompson John McLean · Henry Baldwin James M. Wayne · John Catron John McKinley · Peter V. Daniel
Case opinions
Majority	Story
Concurrence	Taney, Thompson, Wayne, Daniel
Dissent	McLean

Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited Blacks from being taken out of the free state of Pennsylvania into slavery. The Court overturned the conviction of slavecatcher Edward Prigg as a result.^[1][2]

Occurring under the presidency of John Tyler, Prigg v. Pennsylvania weakened the enforcement mechanisms of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 by allowing states to forbid their officials from cooperating in the return of fugitive slaves. But, by asserting federal government authority and responsibility over the area of fugitive slave return, it set the stage for future more stringent laws that would bypass individual state decisions about slavery. (Northern states by this time had abolished slavery, and most prohibited slaveowners from bringing slaves to their states, saying they would be considered free if brought in state.) Later, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (part of the Compromise of 1850) required even free states to support capture and return of fugitive slaves with their law enforcement, increasing penalties for non-compliance.

Also, by refusing to take judicial notice of the problem of free blacks being kidnapped in free states and sold into slavery, the Prigg decision established an implicit precedent that blacks were entitled to fewer procedural protections than were whites.^[3]