Historical Context
Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 as one of several political compromises over slavery. This law was designed to enforce a provision in Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution that commanded that fugitive slaves be “delivered up” to their masters. Some states had refused to participate in this process after Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), a Supreme Court decision that upheld Congress’s power to regulate fugitive slaves, but limited Congress’s power to force state officers to return fugitives to their supposed masters.
The Act imposed stiff penalties for individuals aiding fugitive slaves and implemented a controversial system for delivering up escapees—one which required very little evidence from slaveholders. Rather than using conventional trials before a judge and jury, the Act required federal commissioners (who were paid more for cases decided against allegedly enslaved people) to hear cases. The putatively enslaved were prohibited from testifying on their own behalf, which meant that there was often little hope of rebutting false or mistaken claims made under the Act. Many African Americans, abolitionists, and free-soilers believed this system unjust. They argued that it improperly undermined the power of states to abolish slavery within their borders.
Ableman v. Booth raised questions about the power of northern state courts to resist this unpopular law using the writ of habeas corpus. This writ is a legal instrument by which courts can order authorities holding a prisoner to bring him or her before the court and defend the legal basis for the detention. In Ableman the Supreme Court overturned a state court’s attempt to use this power to force federal authorities to release a prisoner arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act.
Legal Debates before Ableman
The relationship between state and federal courts was not always clear in the period before the Civil War. Early Supreme Court precedents had established that the justices had the power to hear appeals from state supreme courts, but federal courts did not have the authority to issue writs of habeas corpus for state prisoners under existing statutes (an 1867 law ultimately gave federal judges this power). The Court had yet to rule on the reverse question of state courts’ authority to issue writs for federal prisoners. Some reasoned that dozens of different state courts issuing conflicting rulings could impair the authority and uniformity of the federal judicial system. It is important to note, however, that state courts could hear federal civil suits (and, indeed, these courts decided the majority of federal-law cases before 1875). Given their role in federal adjudication, some claimed that state courts had to be empowered to issue the full range of legal remedies, including habeas corpus, to litigants making federal constitutional claims.
The scope of state power over federal officers also played into the vital debate over states’ rights and federal supremacy in the years preceding the Civil War. States’ rights advocates emphasized that the states were sovereign entities before the Constitution’s creation and that the document depended on their acceptance for its legitimacy. As such, they claimed the states had the authority to decide the Constitution’s meaning and could “nullify” federal laws that violated the Constitution, particularly where those laws impaired state sovereignty. This view is typically associated with southern states, but some northerners adopted the position to combat pro-slavery legislation and judicial decisions in the 1850s.
The Case
Ableman arose out of an attempt to free a fugitive slave in Wisconsin. Joshua Glover was captured in 1854 by federal officers operating at the behest of his former master. Glover’s violent arrest and subsequent detention aroused the anger of a group of antislavery advocates who stormed the local jail and freed him. Glover made his way to Canada and was never recaptured. Federal authorities then arrested several of Glover’s liberators, including Sherman Booth, a Milwaukee newspaper editor. Booth petitioned a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The justice issued the writ and ordered U.S. Marshal Stephen Ableman to release Booth. Ableman then petitioned the full Wisconsin Supreme Court to overturn the justice’s decision.
The state court upheld the justice’s decision, basing its ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act. This opinion arguably conflicted with Prigg, though the court attempted to distinguish that case because of the new commissioner system. Despite the court issuing this writ, Booth was tried and convicted in federal district court. Booth again petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus and the court issued writs against Ableman and the local sheriff, ordering Booth’s release.
In an unusually defiant assertion of states’ rights, the Wisconsin court refused to transmit the record of the case to the Supreme Court of the United States in an attempt to insulate its decision from further review. Nevertheless, Ableman and the United States government appealed the state court’s decision to issue both the original and the post-conviction writ. The Supreme Court eventually heard the two cases as a single matter.
The Supreme Court's Ruling
Against the backdrop of sectional tensions over slavery, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion for a unanimous Court was remarkably forceful. Taking the different phases of the state proceedings collectively, Taney reasoned that the Wisconsin court had improperly asserted “the supremacy of the State courts over the courts of the United States[.]” Taney rejected this assertion, emphasizing that the Constitution was founded by the people of the United States, rather than by a compact of the states acting as sovereigns. The states, indeed, had to cede a part of their sovereignty to form a unified federal government. Article IV, Section 2’s Supremacy Clause made it clear that “judges in every State shall be bound” by federal law, and the Supreme Court was the last word on the meaning of that law. As a practical matter, Taney suggested that chaos would ensue if each state claimed for itself the right to reverse or disregard federal rulings within their jurisdictions. One of the primary purposes of his own court, Taney noted, was to avoid a situation in which the “[g]overnment of the United States [becomes] one thing in one State and another thing in another.”
Taney reasoned that this structure of judicial power prohibited the state courts from issuing writs of habeas corpus for federal prisoners. Once a federal officer informed the state court that the prisoner was in the custody of the United States, the court could “proceed no further” and federal judges and officers were to resist any further orders issued by state courts. Taney reasoned that the federal government was a separate sovereign power from the states, and the state courts could no more authorize the release of a federal prisoner than they could one of a foreign government beyond their jurisdiction.
In passing, Taney also stressed that the Fugitive Slave Act was “fully authorized by the Constitution.” While this language was dictum (a statement unnecessary to the case’s disposition that did not carry the full weight of a Supreme Court precedent), it confirmed for many of the Taney Court’s critics the fear that the Court strongly favored the legal preservation of slavery.
Aftermath and Legacy
Shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States decided Ableman, Booth filed for yet another writ of habeas corpus. The Wisconsin court split evenly as to whether to grant this writ, even though Taney’s opinion appeared to foreclose any such possibility. Booth served his thirty-day jail term and remained in custody after that time when he refused to pay a fine that was part of his sentence. A group of armed men took the law into their own hands and broke Booth out of his jail in the U.S. Custom House. Federal authorities later recaptured Booth, though President James Buchanan eventually pardoned him.
The resolution of some of the broader issues in the case took an even more violent course. The U.S. Civil War (1861–65) ultimately settled many of the questions surrounding both slavery and judicial federalism. In the postwar Tarble’s Case (1871), the Supreme Court reiterated that state courts could not order the release of federal prisoners. Because it is not burdened with Taney’s defense of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act, modern federal courts often cite Tarble’s Case instead of Ableman for this principle.
Discussion Questions
- Several of the opinions and other primary sources related to the case allude to the possibility of a civil war. What aspects of the case raised that possibility? Did the outcome of the case make such a war more or less likely?
- Many critics of states’ rights and nullification have argued that these doctrines were “cover” for racist or pro-slavery policies. Does Ableman complicate that argument? Would your view of the legal ideas advanced by the state and federal courts change if the federal statute were antislavery instead of proslavery?
- Many scholars have suggested that the Supreme Court was divided on major issues related to slavery before the Civil War. Ableman, however, was a unanimous decision. What might this suggest about the principles of federalism the case announces?