In Prigg's case[764] a statute of Pennsylvania, passed in 1826, and bearing the suggestive title, "An act to give effect to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States relative to fugitives from labor, for the protection of free people of color, and to prevent kidnapping," was violated by Edward Prigg in seizing and removing a fugitive slave-woman and her children from York County, Pennsylvania, into Maryland, where their mistress lived. In the argument made before the Supreme Court in support of the state law, the authority of the state to legislate was urged on the ground that such authority was not prohibited to the states nor expressly granted "in terms" to Congress;[765] that the statute of Pennsylvania had been enacted at the instance of Maryland, and with a view to giving effect to the constitutional provision relative to fugitives;[766] that the states could best determine how the duty of delivery enjoined upon them should be performed so as to be made acceptable to their citizens;[767] and that the act of Congress was silent as to the rights of negroes wrongfully seized and of the states whose territory was entered and laws violated by persons acting under pretext of right.[768] The Supreme Court did not sustain these objections. A majority of the judges agreed with Justice Story in the view that Congress alone had the power to legislate on the subject of fugitive slaves. The reasons given for this view were two: first, the constitutional source of the authority, by virtue of which the force of an act of Congress pervades the whole Union uncontrolled by state sovereignty or state laws, and secures rights that otherwise would rest upon interstate comity and favor; and, secondly, the necessity of having a uniform system of regulations for all parts of the United States, by which the differences arising from the varieties of policy, local convenience and local feelings existing in the various states can be avoided. The right to retake fugitive slaves and the correlative duty to deliver them were to be "coextensive and uniform in remedy and operation throughout the whole Union." While maintaining that the right of legislation in this matter was exclusively vested in Congress, the court insisted that it did not thereby interfere with the police power of the several states, and that by virtue of this power the states had the authority to arrest and imprison runaway slaves, and to expel them from their borders, just as they might do with vagrants, provided that in exercising this jurisdiction the rights of owners to reclaim their slaves secured by the Constitution and the legislation of Congress were not impeded or destroyed.[769] [764] See Appendix B, p. 370. [765] 16 _Peters' Reports_, 579. [766] _Ibid._, 588-590. [767] _Ibid._, 595. [768] _Ibid._, 602. [769] _Ibid._, 612-617.