Prigg v. Pennsylvania
E261348
Prigg v. Pennsylvania was an 1842 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld federal supremacy over state laws in enforcing the return of escaped enslaved people, significantly strengthening the legal force of the Fugitive Slave Clause.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Prigg v. Pennsylvania canonical | 6 |
| Edward Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | 1 |
| Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2362383 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Prigg v. Pennsylvania Context triple: [Fugitive Slave Clause, relatedToCase, Prigg v. Pennsylvania]
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A.
Morgan v. Virginia
Morgan v. Virginia was a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down state laws mandating racial segregation on interstate buses, laying important groundwork for later civil rights actions.
-
B.
Paul v. Virginia
Paul v. Virginia is an 1869 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held corporations are not “citizens” under the Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, allowing states to regulate foreign insurance companies.
-
C.
Cohens v. Virginia
Cohens v. Virginia is an 1821 U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed the Court’s authority to review state criminal proceedings involving federal law, strengthening federal judicial power over the states.
-
D.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Yick Wo v. Hopkins is an 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racially discriminatory enforcement of a facially neutral law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Chisholm v. Georgia
Chisholm v. Georgia was a 1793 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a state could be sued in federal court by a citizen of another state, a ruling that led directly to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment limiting such suits.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Prigg v. Pennsylvania Target entity description: Prigg v. Pennsylvania was an 1842 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld federal supremacy over state laws in enforcing the return of escaped enslaved people, significantly strengthening the legal force of the Fugitive Slave Clause.
-
A.
Morgan v. Virginia
Morgan v. Virginia was a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down state laws mandating racial segregation on interstate buses, laying important groundwork for later civil rights actions.
-
B.
Paul v. Virginia
Paul v. Virginia is an 1869 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held corporations are not “citizens” under the Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause, allowing states to regulate foreign insurance companies.
-
C.
Cohens v. Virginia
Cohens v. Virginia is an 1821 U.S. Supreme Court case that affirmed the Court’s authority to review state criminal proceedings involving federal law, strengthening federal judicial power over the states.
-
D.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Yick Wo v. Hopkins is an 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racially discriminatory enforcement of a facially neutral law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Chisholm v. Georgia
Chisholm v. Georgia was a 1793 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a state could be sued in federal court by a citizen of another state, a ruling that led directly to the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment limiting such suits.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
fugitive slave law case ⓘ landmark decision ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
constitutional law
ⓘ
federalism ⓘ slavery law ⓘ |
| citation |
10 L. Ed. 1060
ⓘ
41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted |
Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution
ⓘ
surface form:
Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution
Fugitive Slave Clause ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| dateDecided | 1842-03-01 ⓘ |
| decisionDirection | strengthened enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Clause ⓘ |
| dissentingJustice | John McLean ⓘ |
| enforcementContext | return of escaped enslaved people from free states to slave states ⓘ |
| fullCaseName |
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Edward Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
|
| historicalEra | antebellum period ⓘ |
| holding |
Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law was unconstitutional as applied to fugitive slave rendition
ⓘ
federal law governing the return of escaped enslaved people is supreme over conflicting state laws ⓘ states may not interfere with or add conditions to the federal fugitive slave rendition process ⓘ the federal government has exclusive authority to legislate on the recapture of fugitive enslaved people ⓘ |
| impact |
contributed to sectional tensions over slavery before the American Civil War
ⓘ
laid groundwork for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ⓘ strengthened legal protections for slaveholders seeking return of escaped enslaved people ⓘ weakened state personal liberty laws in free states ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | federal ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
constitutionality of state personal liberty laws
ⓘ
federal supremacy ⓘ fugitive slave rendition ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Joseph Story ⓘ |
| originatingJurisdiction | Pennsylvania ⓘ |
| petitioner | Edward Prigg ⓘ |
| precedentFor | Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Ableman v. Booth
ⓘ
Dred Scott v. Sandford ⓘ |
| relatedStatute | Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 ⓘ |
| respondent |
Pennsylvania
ⓘ
surface form:
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
|
| result | Pennsylvania statute partially invalidated ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
U.S. constitutional law casebooks
ⓘ
scholarly analysis on federal supremacy and slavery ⓘ |
| typeOfSupremacyIssue | conflict between federal fugitive slave law and state personal liberty law ⓘ |
| voteSplit | 8–1 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1842 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Prigg v. Pennsylvania Description of subject: Prigg v. Pennsylvania was an 1842 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld federal supremacy over state laws in enforcing the return of escaped enslaved people, significantly strengthening the legal force of the Fugitive Slave Clause.
Referenced by (8)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)
this entity surface form:
Edward Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania