For many years before Prigg's case various states in the North had considered it to be within the province of their legislative powers to enact laws dealing with the subject of fugitive slaves. It would be beside our purpose to enter here upon an examination of these statutes, but it is proper to say that the variety of particulars in which these differed from the law concerning the same subject enacted by Congress prepared the way for a series of legal contests in regard to the question, whether the power to legislate in relation to fugitive slaves could be exercised properly by the states as well as by the federal government. This issue presented itself in at least three notable cases under the law of 1793: these were Jack _vs._ Martin (1835), Peter, _alias_ Lewis Martin (1837), and Prigg _vs._ Pennsylvania (1842). The decisions reached in the first and last cases are of especial significance, because, in the first, the question of concurrent jurisdiction constituted the subject of main interest for the Supreme Court of New York, the court to which the case had been taken from an inferior tribunal; while in the last case, the importance attaches to the conclusive character of an adjudication pronounced by the most exalted court of the nation. In Jack _vs._ Martin the action was begun under the New York law of 1828 for the recovery of a fugitive from New Orleans. Notwithstanding the fact that this law authorized the seizure and return of fugitives to their owners, and that in the case before us, as occurred also in the case of Peter, _alias_ Lewis Martin, the negro was adjudged to his claimant, the law of the state was considered invalid, because the right of legislation on the subject was held to belong exclusively to the national government.[763] [763] 12 _Wendell's Reports_, 311, 316-318.