Articles · Law & the Union
In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the Supreme Court struck down a state law that interfered with the capture of an alleged fugitive slave, holding that the federal fugitive slave clause overrode conflicting state statutes.
The decision affirmed that enforcement of the fugitive slave clause was a federal matter, yet it also held that states could not be compelled to assist—an opening that northern states used to pass 'personal liberty' laws.
Prigg laid bare the deep tension between state and federal authority over slavery, the very question that would tear the Union apart less than two decades later.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania belongs with the constitutional arguments that preceded Fort Sumter. Those arguments are framed on the history of the American Civil War.