Last updated: September 6, 2025
Article
Legal Underpinnings
A trial is obviously a legal undertaking, and so it is necessary to understand the legal status of slavery in the United States in the late 1840s. By doing so, we can better understand the trials of abolitionists Thomas Garrett and John Hunn.
At the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, slavery was legal and long established. In Delaware, racially based slavery had been legally recognized since colonial times and would only be abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment. Slavery was so important to many states in the South that most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention realized that an attempt to adopt a constitution that prohibited or substantially diminished slavery would result in the departure of those slave states from the new union. Therefore, there is very little mention of the institution of slavery in the original Constitution, and certainly nothing about gradually abolishing the institution. The few provisions of the original U.S. Constitution that deal with slavery do not use the term "slavery" at all.
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution establishes how the states are represented in Congress. The section provides that each state will have one representative in the House of Representatives for every 30,000 persons residing in that state. It goes on to specify that the number of persons residing in each state will be determined by adding the number of free persons within each state to three-fifths of all other persons residing in that state, excluding "Indians not taxed". Although enslaved people were not permitted to vote, a state which had slavery got to count three-fifths of each enslaved person towards representation in the House.
Article I, Section 9 prohibits Congress from making any law regarding, "migration or importation of such persons as any States now existing shall think proper to admit" until 1808 (twenty years after the expected years of ratification). In essence, under this section, Congress was banned from passing any law regarding the importation of enslaved people from other countries for twenty years after the ratification of the Constitution.
Finally, Article IV, Section 2 provides the following:
"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
In other words, a freedom seeker cannot change their status as an enslaved person by fleeing to a state where slavery is prohibited. Furthermore, the state to which the freedom seeker has fled is required to deliver up the freedom seeker to their enslaver upon presentation of a claim by their enslaver.
To give this aforementioned section of the Constitution an effect, Congress adopted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. That law empowered an enslaver, their agent, or their attorney to petition a magistrate of the state which a freedom seeker fled into to order the return of the freedom seeker to the enslaver after conducting a hearing or considering affidavits submitted by the enslaver. Furthermore, Section 4 of this Act provided that a person who harbored or concealed a freedom seeker after having received notice that the person was a fugitive would be liable to the enslaver for $500. The enslaver could seek such damages, "by action of debt, in any Court proper to try the same." Freedom seekers in non-slave territories lived in fear because they were considered fugitives.
Many free states were not receptive to the fact that their judges and law enforcement officers were required to cooperate with enslavers who sought the return of their "property". A case that arose from this friction was Prigg v. Pennsylvania 41 U.S. 539 (1842). The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had passed an amendment to its "Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery" that prohibited returning freedom seekers who had made their way into the state back into slavery. Furthermore, in 1826, Pennsylvania passed an act that made it a crime for a person by force, duress, or fraud, to remove a freedom seeker from the state for the purpose of returning them back to slavery. In 1832, Margaret Morgan, who was enslaved, moved to York County in Pennsylvania. Her enslaver was John Ashmore. By 1837, Ashmore had died, and his children hired Edward Prigg to enter Pennsylvania and capture Morgan and her children, even though one of Morgan's children was born free in Pennsylvania. Prigg and three other men abducted Morgan and her children and transported them back to Maryland and sold them into slavery. Prigg and his accomplices were charged and convicted of violating the 1826 Pennsylvania Act. Prigg argued that the Pennsylvania Act was unenforceable since it ran contrary to the Federal Slave Act of 1793, which prohibited Pennsylvania from interfering with his actions in returning Morgan and her children back to Maryland. Furthermore, he argued that the adoption of the 1826 Pennsylvania Act was in violation of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court's decision was split. Justice Story wrote the majority opinion that held that the Pennsylvania law was in violation of Article IV Section 2 and that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 trumped the Pennsylvania law according to the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution. A dissent opinion was written by Justice John McLean. He pointed out that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required slave catchers to obtain certification from a federal judge or local magistrate that the seizure of the enslaved person was legal prior to their departure out of the state that enslaved person was found in. This certification was not obtained by Prigg, so he could not argue protections under the Federal Slave Act. Despite this dissent, Prigg v. Pennsylvania proved that even the liberties of free Black citizens could not be protected in non-slave states.
At the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, slavery was legal and long established. In Delaware, racially based slavery had been legally recognized since colonial times and would only be abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment. Slavery was so important to many states in the South that most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention realized that an attempt to adopt a constitution that prohibited or substantially diminished slavery would result in the departure of those slave states from the new union. Therefore, there is very little mention of the institution of slavery in the original Constitution, and certainly nothing about gradually abolishing the institution. The few provisions of the original U.S. Constitution that deal with slavery do not use the term "slavery" at all.
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution establishes how the states are represented in Congress. The section provides that each state will have one representative in the House of Representatives for every 30,000 persons residing in that state. It goes on to specify that the number of persons residing in each state will be determined by adding the number of free persons within each state to three-fifths of all other persons residing in that state, excluding "Indians not taxed". Although enslaved people were not permitted to vote, a state which had slavery got to count three-fifths of each enslaved person towards representation in the House.
Article I, Section 9 prohibits Congress from making any law regarding, "migration or importation of such persons as any States now existing shall think proper to admit" until 1808 (twenty years after the expected years of ratification). In essence, under this section, Congress was banned from passing any law regarding the importation of enslaved people from other countries for twenty years after the ratification of the Constitution.
Finally, Article IV, Section 2 provides the following:
"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
In other words, a freedom seeker cannot change their status as an enslaved person by fleeing to a state where slavery is prohibited. Furthermore, the state to which the freedom seeker has fled is required to deliver up the freedom seeker to their enslaver upon presentation of a claim by their enslaver.
To give this aforementioned section of the Constitution an effect, Congress adopted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. That law empowered an enslaver, their agent, or their attorney to petition a magistrate of the state which a freedom seeker fled into to order the return of the freedom seeker to the enslaver after conducting a hearing or considering affidavits submitted by the enslaver. Furthermore, Section 4 of this Act provided that a person who harbored or concealed a freedom seeker after having received notice that the person was a fugitive would be liable to the enslaver for $500. The enslaver could seek such damages, "by action of debt, in any Court proper to try the same." Freedom seekers in non-slave territories lived in fear because they were considered fugitives.
Many free states were not receptive to the fact that their judges and law enforcement officers were required to cooperate with enslavers who sought the return of their "property". A case that arose from this friction was Prigg v. Pennsylvania 41 U.S. 539 (1842). The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had passed an amendment to its "Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery" that prohibited returning freedom seekers who had made their way into the state back into slavery. Furthermore, in 1826, Pennsylvania passed an act that made it a crime for a person by force, duress, or fraud, to remove a freedom seeker from the state for the purpose of returning them back to slavery. In 1832, Margaret Morgan, who was enslaved, moved to York County in Pennsylvania. Her enslaver was John Ashmore. By 1837, Ashmore had died, and his children hired Edward Prigg to enter Pennsylvania and capture Morgan and her children, even though one of Morgan's children was born free in Pennsylvania. Prigg and three other men abducted Morgan and her children and transported them back to Maryland and sold them into slavery. Prigg and his accomplices were charged and convicted of violating the 1826 Pennsylvania Act. Prigg argued that the Pennsylvania Act was unenforceable since it ran contrary to the Federal Slave Act of 1793, which prohibited Pennsylvania from interfering with his actions in returning Morgan and her children back to Maryland. Furthermore, he argued that the adoption of the 1826 Pennsylvania Act was in violation of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court's decision was split. Justice Story wrote the majority opinion that held that the Pennsylvania law was in violation of Article IV Section 2 and that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 trumped the Pennsylvania law according to the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution. A dissent opinion was written by Justice John McLean. He pointed out that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required slave catchers to obtain certification from a federal judge or local magistrate that the seizure of the enslaved person was legal prior to their departure out of the state that enslaved person was found in. This certification was not obtained by Prigg, so he could not argue protections under the Federal Slave Act. Despite this dissent, Prigg v. Pennsylvania proved that even the liberties of free Black citizens could not be protected in non-slave states.