Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2011 Rediscovering Prigg v. Pennsylvania Andrew J. Trochanowski Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the American Politics Commons, and the Political History Commons Recommended Citation Trochanowski, Andrew J., "Rediscovering Prigg v. Pennsylvania" (2011). Honors Theses. 1078. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/1078 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i Rediscovering Prigg v. Pennsylvania By Andrew J. Trochanowski ********* Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of Political Science UNION COLLEGE June, 2011 ii ABSTRACT Trochanowski, Andrew J. Rediscovering Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Department of Political Science, June 2011 Advisor: Prof. Clifford Brown. Special Thanks to Prof. Bradley D. Hays. The concept of federalism serves as the foundation for the American political system. The framers laid a foundation for balancing state and national tensions; and during the antebellum era American political actors wrestled with the proper application of these concepts. This paper traces the evolution of federalist principles beginning at the founding and culminating with the commonly misperceived Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania by analyzing transformative historical moments and political regimes. Prigg v. Pennsylvania currently exists within contemporary political and constitutional scholarly literature as a slavery case decided upon moralistic bias and the Court’s commitment to the institution of slavery. Closer analysis unveils the decision in Prigg’s connection with the evolution of federalist principles throughout early American history. This paper attempts to uncover how institutional relationships shape governing political principles and how a variety of political actors, specifically the Supreme Court, are influenced by these relationships. The antebellum political order struggled with stabilizing sectional ideological divides and attempted to mitigate these issues by championing doctrines of political compromise. Through this paradigm, Prigg v. Pennsylvania’s conventional status in constitutional literature can be shifted, and instead can be used as an analytical lens for understanding the antebellum political order. 1 Rediscovering Prigg v. Pennsylvania: Articulating Federalism Federalism has long driven the constitutional and political debates in American government. Defining this idea is useful for understanding a number of important political and constitutional episodes from early America up until and including the often mischaracterized Supreme Court decision Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Some contemporary political scholars tend to misinterpret past political events using their contemporary political paradigms and visions of justice. Documented history enables us to learn the language and paradigms of influential political figures and institutions in an effort to understand the governing political principles of past eras. Judging historical figures and events with twenty-first century biases clouds the reality of the application of political principles by those who have shaped this nation. Numerous contemporary paradigms, however, are useful for understanding earlier political visions. For example, Robert Dahl (1957) and Keith Whittington (2007) offer illuminating theoretical frameworks which allow us to view Courts as part of a “decision-making majority” who make judicial decisions not solely in their own vision, but also with presidential and congressional interests in mind. These inter-institutional relationships often result in the construction of the political principles which influence political action and decision making in numerous arenas. Federalism is one of, if not the most crucial tenets of the American political order. Prior to the Constitutional Convention and ratification in 1789, states wrestled with identifying their proper role within the federal system. The failure of the Articles of Confederation exists as a primary example of how an inadequate definition of the federal-state relationship can result in constitutional and political disorder. Ultimately, through the constitutional debates and other public forums, the founders attempted to structure the duality of the American system through the ratification of the United States Constitution. This document serves as the foundation for 2 analyzing the federal-state problem. However, consistent visions of this relationship have not been embraced throughout our constitutional and political history and this dissertation will attempt to uncover how these conceptions of federalism have been defined and applied throughout early America, culminating in the mischaracterized Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision. What is federalism? Federalism in American politics is the delineation of power and responsibility between federal and state governments. Both state governments and the federal government were understood to possess a certain level of sovereignty. The framers and other early political actors attempted to determine who held power in a variety of political areas. Early American citizens expressed loyalty to both the United States and their individual states and experienced difficulty in determining a hierarchy. A citizenry which expresses legitimate loyalty to a variety of different government authorities is bound to experience divisive political issues. The founders were cognizant of these competing loyalties and intended to create a document which would effectively delimit and monitor these relationships. History and experience led governing institutions to explore a variety of different methods for establishing these principles. Over time, issues continued to arise over who possessed authority to draw the structural lines and where precisely these lines should be drawn. Courts, Congress, the executive, and states all expressed their desire to shape the federal-state relationship. We will analyze the period of American politics from the founding through the decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, before slavery became the primary political issue in American government, in an attempt to determine how these lines were drawn and what influence federalism had on the American political structure. 3 The choice of this particular American period is of note. We are able to use federalism as our primary analytical tool because of the political climate during the period in question. Using slavery as an analytical tool for viewing any of the political eras in this dissertation, especially Prigg, is problematic because it had yet to become the preeminent political force in American politics. Issues had arisen with slavery implications, but the issue was not yet a primary concern. Delineating responsibility between the federal and state governments consumed the minds of early political actors, and these actions had implications across institutional lines. The initial era created the foundation through which every subsequent political actor issued their federalist paradigm; and political actors, despite the bombast, exercised varying degrees of caution in their practice and exploration of federalist principles. All of them however, felt bound by the document, regardless of how they viewed the powers within. Every political actor since the founding operate with a high level of respect for the foundational principles set forth by the governing document and the analysis which follows illustrates this reverence. How will this paper uncover this complex and often tenuous relationship? Aside from identifying specific principles applied to transformative political events, the theoretical framework adopted stems from recent scholarship in American political development. As aforementioned, many recent scholars have begun to re-analyze the lenses we use to study political motivations for establishing structural principles (Graber 2006) (Gillman 1993) (Kahn and Kersch 2006). The rise in literature concerning institutional relationships and how their structures and limits affect their ability to institute meaningful political change suggests our common conceptions of how political principles are applied are not entirely accurate (Whittington 2007) (Gillman 1993) (Graber 2006) (Levinson 2006). By viewing certain political procedures, principles, and episodes through different theoretical frameworks we are able to 4 discover (or perhaps rediscover) aspects of these procedures, principles and episodes previously unbeknownst to us. Federalism is one of these principles. Federalism very much governs the American political system. Understanding federalism and its different applications at different political moments allows us to understand executive, congressional, and judicial responses to political controversies. Political history is filled with moments which fashioned the structural definition of federalist principles (Ackerman 1993). The evolution of federalism over a sixty year period ultimately sets the table for the jurisprudence in Prigg v. Pennsylvania and identifying this evolution in a number of different political regimes proves important for understanding the culture of compromise and sectional divide in the 1840s and beyond. This dissertation will effectively