holding that, “[b]eeause the duty is directly imposed upon the States by the Constitution itself, there can be no need to weigh the performance of the federal obligation against the powers reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment”
How later courts described this case
- holding that, “[b]eeause the duty is directly imposed upon the States by the Constitution itself, there can be no need to weigh the performance of the federal obligation against the powers reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment”
- holding that, "[b]ecause the duty is directly imposed upon the States by the Constitution itself, there can be no need to weigh the performance of the federal obligation against the powers reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment"
- abandoning rule first adopted in Kentucky v. Dennison , 65 U.S. (24 How.) 66, 16 L.Ed. 717 (1860), when federal power was "at its lowest ebb" on eve of Civil War, that asylum state's obligation to deliver fugitive to demanding state was "moral" rather than "mandatory and compulsory" (quoting Dennison , 65 U.S. (24 How.) at 107 )
- rejecting the premise that states and the federal government should always be viewed as coequal sovereigns and explaining that “[i]t has long been a settled principle that federal courts may enjoin unconstitutional action by state officials.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Scalia,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the result, and in the portions of the Court’s opinion applying 18 U. S. C. § 3182 and overruling Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66 (1861), insofar as it interpreted the predecessor of that statute. I note that no party before us has asserted the lack of power of Congress to require extradition from a State to a Territory.