Fugitive Slave Clause
The Fugitive Slave Clause in the
Text
The text of the Fugitive Slave Clause is:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.[5]
As in the other references in the Constitution dealing with slavery, the words "slave" and "slavery" are not used in this clause. Historian
Most revealing in this respect was a last-minute change in the fugitive-clause whereby the phrase "legally held to service or labor in one state" was changed to read "held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof." The revision made it impossible to infer from the passage that the Constitution itself legally sanctioned slavery.[6]
Background
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Prior to the American Revolution, there were no generally accepted principles of international law that required sovereign states to return fugitive slaves who had fled to their territory. English court decisions and opinions came down on both sides of the issue.[7]
The ambiguity was resolved with the
Nonetheless, the Somerset precedent was frightening to southern slaveholders. It had been widely published in America, and often over-interpreted as having completely abolished slavery under British law. News of the ruling had spread by word of mouth among slaves, which of course was troubling to their masters.[9]
During and after the American Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation, there was no way to compel free states to capture fugitive slaves from other states and return them to their former masters, although there were provisions for the extradition of criminals. Despite this, there was not a widespread belief that this was a problem or that Northern states failed to cooperate on the issue. This was due at least in part to the fact that by 1787 only Vermont and Massachusetts had outlawed or effectively outlawed slavery.[10]
At the
The next day Butler proposed the following language which was passed with no debate or objections.[13][14]
If any person bound to service or labor in any of the United States shall escape into another State, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor, in consequence of any regulations subsisting in the State to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor.
Afterwards, the Convention's
Legacy
When South Carolina seceded from the Union in late 1860, its secession convention issued the
Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution of the Confederate States mentioned slavery by name and specified African-Americans as the subject. It contained a much more rigid form of the Fugitive Slave Clause.
In 1864, during the
See also
- Fugitive slave laws
- Slave Trade Acts
References
- ^ Hall, Kermit. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, p. 925 (Oxford U. Press 2005).
- ^ Salzman, Jack et al. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, p. 2469 (Macmillan Library Reference, 1996).
- ^ Finkelman, Paul. Slavery & the Law, p. 25 n. 62 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
- ^ Best, Stephen. The Fugitive's Properties: Law and the Poetics of Possession, p. 80 (U. Chicago Press 2010).
- ^ In the Constitution, the British spelling ("labour") is used.
- ^ a b Fehrenbacher (2001) p. 44.
- ^ Amar (2005) pp. 257-258
- ^ Amar (2005) p. 258. Lubet (2010) p.17.
- ^ Lubet (2010) p. 18
- ^ Lubet (2010) p.16
- ^ Madison refers to Charles Pinckney as "Mr. Pinkney" and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as "Genl Pinkney" or "Mr. C Pinkney"; here he refers to "Mr. Pinkney". Madison, James, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 August 28 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_828.asp
- ^ Goldstone (2005) p. 174. Finkelman (1990) pp. 397-398
- ^ Goldstone (2005) p. 174-175. Finkelman (1990) pp. 397-398
- ^ a b A Profile of Runaway Slaves in Virginia and South Carolina from 1730 through 1787, by Lathan A. Windley, p. 110-111
- ^ Madison, James, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 September 15
- ^ The vote in the House was 69 for repeal and 38 against, which was short of the two-to-one vote required to amend the Constitution. See the Congressional Globe, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., 1325 (1864)
- ^ Hyman, Andrew (2005). "The Little Word 'Due'". Akron Law Review. 38: 1. Archived from the original on February 5, 2013.
Bibliography
- Amar, Akhil Reed. America's Constitution: A Biography. (2005) ISBN 0-8129-7272-4.
- Fehrenbacher, Don E. The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery. (2001) ISBN 0-19-514177-6.
- Finkelman, Paul. "The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793". The Journal of Southern History, (Vol. LVI, No.3, August 1990).
- Goldstone, Lawrence. Dark Bargain: Slavery, Profits, and the Struggle for the Constitution. (2005) ISBN 0-8027-1460-9.
- Lubet, Steven. Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial. (2010) ISBN 978-0-674-04704-4.
- Madison, James. "Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787." http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp