When it comes to bird identification, your memory is apparently still good....if that helps. LOL!
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The Supreme Court in the Prigg case ruled the 1826 Pennsylvania law unconstitutional.
Which is true, but they also said the federal government had the authority to legislate on the subject, which is false.
To prevent the federal government from claiming that authority is precisely why the Founders put in such a strange place, and not under the powers of Congress.
The problem is that an earlier case in 1835, Jack v. Martin, the appeals court found the federal government didn't have the authority to regulate it either, BUT the clause and the Act of 1793 made it uniform, so the clause and act together were judged to be perfectly constitutional.
Enforceable by all [via the Fugitive slave act of 1793], yet actionable by none [via the 10th Amendment of the Constitution].
There was no authority for the federal government to hear any case again based on the issue of slavery....period.
As the north continued to pass laws contrary to the already established rules of evidentiary procedure [established with colonial law] to make special rules concerning slavery and despite the Constitutional precedent, they broke the contract
When the federal government decided to re-hear the case on a subject already established to be beyond the legal scope of their authority THEY broke the contract.
It wasn't so much the South left the Union as the Union left them.
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I understand the wish of some states to free slaves and not have slavery in their states. I am glad, of course, that slavery no longer exists in this country, and I wish that it had never started here.
To that, I heartily agree.
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Sorry to ramble on about things you may have already read, or we might have discussed before. Maybe MY memory isn't what it used to be. LOL!
Don't know if you'll be gone because of travel or not, but safe journey!
But of course any dispute between the states was to be settled by legal means, with the supreme court acting as original jurisdiction, per Article 3.
Congress had rights to regulate commerce, and slaves transported across state borders were commerce, just as slaves transported across the US national borders were commerce, which congress had authority to regulate after 1808.
So Priggs, and other cases involving the states were to be resolved by the courts, with the courts agreed by taking the case.
State courts set their own rules of evidence, and SC had no authority to intervene in PA rules of evidence, nor would SC have any right to declare themselves oppressed by PA rules of evidence. They were welcome to keep their slaves out of PA, as much as they wanted to avoid being subject to PA law. Once in PA, they were subject to rules of evidence in PA to determine if the subject was indeed a fugitive, or if the documents and testimony were fraudulent or forged, at least until the SCOTUS ruled to the contrary.
[me]: The Supreme Court in the Prigg case ruled the 1826 Pennsylvania law unconstitutional.
[you]: Which is true, but they also said the federal government had the authority to legislate on the subject, which is false.
To prevent the federal government from claiming that authority is precisely why the Founders put in such a strange place, and not under the powers of Congress.
The problem is that an earlier case in 1835, Jack v. Martin, the appeals court found the federal government didn't have the authority to regulate it either, BUT the clause and the Act of 1793 made it uniform, so the clause and act together were judged to be perfectly constitutional.
Enforceable by all [via the Fugitive slave act of 1793], yet actionable by none [via the 10th Amendment of the Constitution].
There was no authority for the federal government to hear any case again based on the issue of slavery....period.
I've not seen that argument before. Thank you for bringing it up. I started looking into it a few days ago.
You mentioned a New York case, Jack v. Martin. Both the 1834 Jack v. Martin case (12 Wend. 311) by the New York Supreme Court and the 1835 review of the 1834 case by the New York Court of Errors (14 Wend. 507), another state court, were among the cases that Justice Story cited in Prigg v. Pennsylvania as supporting the constitutionality of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law. Here is what Justice Story said about the constitutionality of the 1793 act in his delivery of the Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) decision [my emphasis below]:
The same uniformity of acquiescence in the validity of the act of 1793, upon the other part of the subject-matter, that of fugitive slaves, has prevailed throughout the whole Union, until a comparatively recent period. Nay! being from its nature and character more readily susceptible of being brought into controversy in courts of justice, than the former, and of enlisting in opposition to it, the feelings, and it may be, the prejudices, of some portions of the non-slaveholding states, it has naturally been brought under adjudication in several states in the Union, and particularly in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania; and on all these occasions its validity has been affirmed. The cases cited at the bar, of Wright v. Deacon, 5 Serg. & Rawle 62; Glen v. Hodges, 9 Johns. 67; Jack v. Martin, 12 Wend. 311; s. c. 12 [sic; should be 14] Ibid. 507; and Commonwealth v. Griffin, 2 Pick. 11, are directly in point. So far as the judges of the courts of the United States have been called upon to enforce it, and to grant the certificate required by it, it is believed, that it has been uniformly recognised as a binding and valid law, and as imposing a constitutional duty. …
The court in Prigg did not just rely on precedent. Justice Story also said the following in the decision [my emphasis again]:
But we do not wish to rest our present opinion upon the ground [41 U.S. 539, 622] either of contemporaneous exposition, or long acquiescence, or even practical action; neither do we mean to admit the question to be of a doubtful nature, and therefore, as properly calling for the aid of such considerations. On the contrary, our judgment would be the same, if the question were entirely new, and the act of congress were of recent enactment. We hold the act to be clearly constitutional, in all its leading provisions, and, indeed, with the exception of that part which confers authority upon state magistrates, to be free from reasonable doubt and difficulty, upon the grounds already stated. As to the authority so conferred upon state magistrates, while a difference of opinion has existed, and may exist still, on the point, in different states, whether state magistrates are bound to act under it, none is entertained by this court, that state magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless prohibited by state legislation. …
From what I've been able to find, the Jack v Martin 1835 Court of Errors case affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of New York in the 1834 Jack v. Martin case, and the decision to affirm the 1834 case was unanimous. Here is a link to the 1835 Jack v. Martin case [Link], and here is a link to some extensive quotes from the 1834 Jack v. Martin case along with explanations about the 1835 case [An essay upon the constitutional rights as to slave property. Republished from the "Southern literary messenger," for Feb. 1840. By Robinson Conway, 1805-1884.]. The 1840 article gives the following details below about the 1835 Jack v. Martin case in the Court of Errors:
After this decision of the supreme court of the state of New York in the case of Jack v. Martin, the case was removed in behalf of the slave into the court of errors – a court constituted of the president of the senate, chancellor of the state, judges of the supreme court, and all the senators. The hearing before the court of errors was in December, 1835.
Only two opinions were delivered at large. They were by the chancellor, and senator Bishop.
The Chancellor argued that the states had the right to legislate, not the US Congress. Senator Bishop made a lot of the same arguments to the contrary that had been made in the 1834 case and recommended that the 1834 case be affirmed. As vote to affirm was unanimous, the Chancellor must have followed the recommendation of Senator Bishop.
If you have sources that go into the Jack v. Martin cases in more detail than what I found, please provide a link or a source. It may be that what I found is not the entire case. I've seen things on the web that said the Court of Errors case ruled the 1793 law was unconstitutional but returned the slave anyway because the Constitution said that the slave should be returned. That is not the way I read the links above.
I found the two Jack v. Martin cases (1834 and 1835) characterized as "Federal power supreme" in "THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE YEAR 1905, SHOWING THE ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION," by Charles Z. Lincoln [Link].
There was also the summary of the arguments in Prigg v. Pennsylvania that appeared in the text before the opinion delivered by Justice Story that said the following:
The act of congress had never been questioned upon this ground, till the case of Jack v. Martin came before the court of errors of the state of New York. And even in that case, it was a mere intimation thrown out by the chancellor, but neither reasoned out, nor relied on.
I was impressed by a comment by Justice McLean in Prigg v. Pennsylvania about the 1793 law (emphasis mine):
It is contended, that the power to execute it rests with the states. The law was designed to protect the rights of the slave-holder against the states opposed to those rights; and yet, by this argument, the effective power is in the hands of those on whom it is to operate. This would produce a strange anomaly in the history of legislation; it would show an inexperience and folly in the venerable framers of the constitution, from which, of all public bodies that ever assembled, they were, perhaps, most exempt. The clause of the constitution under consideration declares that no fugitive from labor shall be discharged from such labor, by any law or regulation of the state into which he may have fled. Is the state to judge of this? Is it left for the state to determine what effect shall be given to this and other parts of the provision? …
After Congress passed the 1793 law, did it have no further authority to legislate to protect the right of slave owners to recover fugitive slaves? That sounds a bit like what you are saying, but perhaps I misinterpreted what you said. The comments of Justice Wayne in Prigg v. Pennsylvania address that issue:
That the act of congress of the 12th February 1793, entitled 'an act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,' gives a remedy; but does not exhaust the remedies which congress may legislate upon the subject.
I think that unless Congress legislated, slave states and slave owners would bring many, many suits against the laws of Northern states that delayed or obstructed the return of fugitive slaves. Congress did legislate further on the matter in the 1850 fugitive slave law. It was their right to do that. However, I have problems with the 1850 law in that it imposed on ordinary citizens a duty to help the federal marshals in capturing or returning the fugitive slave, even though such actions might be against the moral code or conscience of those citizens.
If the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution that protected the rights of slaveholders could be rendered moot by the actions of Northern states going back on their word, then of what use was the constitutional bargain that made the Union of Northern and Southern states possible?
BroJoeK, I'll have to excuse myself again. We are headed to the East Coast to see my wife's relatives. I'll be back in a couple of weeks if I survive the relatives.