United States Reports (Volume 55); Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1853. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. 1. A State, under its general and admitted power to define and punish offences against its own peace and policy, may repel from its borders an unacceptable populntion, whether paupers, criminals, fugitives, or liberated slaves; and, consequently, may punish her citizens and others who thwart this policy, by harboring, secreting, or in any way assisting such fugitives. Aloore v. People of Illinois, 13. 2. It is no objection to such legislation, that the offender may be liable to punish ment under the act of Congress for the same acts, when injurious to the owner of the fugitive slave. Ilia. 3. The cose of Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (16 Peters, 539, ) presented the following questions, which were decided by the court: 1. That, under and by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority in every State in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, wherever he con do it without illegal violence or a breach of the peace. 2. That the government of the United States is clothed with appropriate author ity and functions to enforce the delivery, on claim of the owner, and has properly exercised it in the act of Congress of 12th February, 1793. 3. That any State law or regulation, which interrupts, impedes, limits, embar rasses, delays, or postpones, the right of the owner to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service, is void, Ibid. 4. This court has not decided that State legislation, in aid of the claimant, and which docs not directly or indirectly delay, impede, or frustrate the master in the exercise of his right under the Constitution, or in pursuit of his remedy given by the act of Congress, is void. Ibid. 5. It belongs exclusively to the ..