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Signed book: Report of the Case of Edward Prigg Against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, by Richard Peters. First edition. Philadelphia: Stereotyped by L. Johnson, 1842. Hardcover in a 20th century library binding, 6 x 10, 140 pages. Signed on a free end page in ink by Congressman Richard Wigginton Thompson of Indiana, later Secretary of the Navy under Rutherford B. Hayes. In very good to fine condition, with mottled foxing to the textblock and ex-library markings, including a "George Peabody College for Teachers Library" bookplate to front pastedown.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) was a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled state laws could not interfere with the federal government's authority to enforce the return of fugitive slaves. The case arose when Edward Prigg, a Maryland man, was convicted under Pennsylvania law for capturing and returning a Black woman, Margaret Morgan, to slavery without following the state’s legal procedures. The Court, in a decision written by Associate Justice Joseph Story, struck down the Pennsylvania law as unconstitutional, stating that only the federal government could regulate the capture and return of fugitive slaves. This decision strengthened federal supremacy but also allowed Northern states to avoid enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, increasing tensions over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War.
