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Preview: ... ess prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight…”,( U.S. Constitution. Art 1 § 9) Again, the Constitution refers to slaves as “such persons”, but the intent of the section is clear. In order to preserve the union, delegates to the Constitutional Convention agreed to allow the slave trade to continue uninterrupted, and largely unregulated, for another thirty years.<br>Since the Constitution included measures that were obviously intended to recognize and protect the institution of slavery, there was little reason for the Supreme Court to address the issue one way or the other during the republic’s formative years. However, an extremely vocal minority of abolitionists in the northern states would eventually bring the subject of slavery and race relations onto the court’s docket.<br>Prigg v Pennsylvania, 1842.<br>In an effort to gradually abolish slavery throughout the state, Pennsylvania enacted a law to prevent blacks from being forcibly removed from the state. A man by the name of Edward Prigg acted in violation of that statute when he attempted to capture a black woman who had been claimed as property by a slave owner in Maryland. Prigg was indicted for kidnapping and later appealed his case to the Supreme Court. In an eight-to-one decision, the Supreme Court ruled that certain provisions of Pennsylvania’s anti-slavery statute violated the fugitive slave clause of the United States Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. Edward Prigg’s indictment was overturned, and certain sections of Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law of 1826 were nullified. However, Justice Story also stipulated that the federal government was powerless to compel state authorities to enforce federal law. As a result, the Pennsylvania legislature began passing laws that expressly forbid state officers from cooperating with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.<br><br><br><br>2. The first half of the nineteenth century- The early years of the nineteenth century saw a great deal of legal wrangling in regard to the issue of race relations, with the crown jewel of the race relations issue, so to speak, defined in regard to the equal granting of rights to all races. Early in the nineteenth century, Marbury v. Madison, a pivotal Supreme Court case, rule that any law passed that went contrary to the provisions of the Constitution could be voided by its very nature. Somehow, however, the essence of Marbury never came to full realization, for one reason or another.<br>While one would assume that, for example, that the Bill of Rights would be the last word on equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, the Bill of Rights was found to be less than absolute, as ruled upon by the Supreme Court. <br>Dred Scott v Sanford, 1847.<br>The issue of race came before the Supreme Court again in 1856 when a man named Dred Scott, who lived in a state wherein slavery had been abolished, attempted to sue his master for refusing to acknowledge his freedom. In a seven to two decision, the court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to act on Scott’s case, because the Constitution states that only citizens may file suit in federal court. On the subject of the citizenship status of Africans, Chief Justice Taney wrote that blacks are “…beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The court also ruled that a slave owner could not be deprived of property simply for bringing a slave into a state or territory wherein slavery had been outlawed.<br>Although the design of the Supreme Court is to rule on individual cases, and not to issue blanket edicts on the issues brought before it, these individual rulings often had the power of a blanket ruling anyhow. An excellent example of this is the ruling of the Supreme Cour ...

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