Fugitive slave laws in the United States
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The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the
Pre-colonial and colonial eras
The
It is also agreed that if any servant ran away from his master into any other of these confederated Jurisdictions, that in such case, upon the certificate of one magistrate in the Jurisdiction out of which the said servant fled, or upon other due proof; the said servant shall be delivered, either to his master, or any other that pursues and brings such certificate or proof.[5]
As the colonies expanded with waves of settlers pushing westward, slavery went along with them, prompting further legislation of a similar nature.[6] Serious attempts at formulating a uniform policy for the forced re-enslavement of free people began under the Articles of Confederation of the United States in 1785.[7]
1785 attempt
There were two attempts at implementing a fugitive slave law in the Congress of the Confederation in order to provide slave-owners who enslaved free people with a way of forcing enslavement on free people.
The Ordinance of 1784 was drafted by a Congressional committee headed by Thomas Jefferson, and its provisions applied to all United States territory west of the original 13 states. The original version was read to Congress on March 1, 1784, and it contained a clause stating:[8]
That after the year 1800 of the Christian Era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.
This was removed prior to final enactment of the ordinance on 23 April 1784. However, the issue did not die there, and on 6 April 1785 Rufus King introduced a resolution to re-implement the slavery prohibition in the 1784 ordinance, containing a freedom seeker provision in the hope that this would reduce opposition to the objective of the resolution. The resolution contained the phrase:[9]
Provided always, that upon the escape of any person into any of the states described in the said resolve of Congress of the 23d day of April, 1784, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the thirteen original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and carried back to the person claiming his labor or service as aforesaid, this resolve notwithstanding.
The unsuccessful resolution was the first attempt to include a freedom seeker provision in U.S. legislation.
While the original 1784 ordinance applied to all U.S. territory that was not a part of any existing state (and thus, to all future states), the 1787 ordinance applied only to the Northwest Territory.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Congress made a further attempt to address the concerns of people who wanted to enslave free people in 1787 by passing the
King's phrasing from the 1785 attempt was incorporated in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 when it was enacted on 13 July 1787.[8] Article 6 has the provision for freedom seekers:
Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.[13]
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
When Congress created "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters", or more commonly known as the Fugitive Slave Act, they were responding to slave owners' need to protect their property rights, as written into the 1787 Constitution. Article IV of the Constitution required the federal government to go after runaway slaves.[14] The 1793 Fugitive Slave Act was the mechanism by which the government did that, and it was only at this point the government could pursue runaway slaves in any state or territory, and ensure slave owners of their property rights.[15]
Section 3 is the part that deals with fugitive or runaway slaves, and reads in part:
SEC. 3. ... That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or of the Territories on the Northwest or South of the river Ohio ... shall escape into any other part of the said States or Territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due ... is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor ... and upon proof ... before any Judge ... it shall be the duty of such Judge ... [to remove] the said fugitive from labor to the State or Territory from which he or she fled.
Section 4 makes assisting runaways and fugitives a crime and outlines the punishment for those who assisted runaway slaves:
SEC. 4. ... That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant ... shall ... forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars.[16]
High demand for slaves in the Deep South and the hunt for fugitives caused free blacks to be at risk of being kidnapped and sold into slavery, despite having "free" papers. Many people who were legally free and had never been slaves were captured and brought south to be sold into slavery. The historian Carol Wilson documented 300 such cases in Freedom at Risk (1994) and estimated there were likely thousands of others.[17]
In the early 19th century,
The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania in 1842 (16 Peters 539)—that state authorities could not be forced to act in fugitive slave cases, but that national authorities must carry out the national law—was followed by legislation in Massachusetts (1843), Vermont (1843), Pennsylvania (1847) and Rhode Island (1848), forbidding state officials from aiding in enforcing the law and refusing the use of state jails for fugitive slaves.[18]
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The demand from the South for more effective Federal legislation was voiced in the second fugitive slave law, drafted by Senator
Penalties were imposed upon marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive should escape, and upon individuals who aided black people to escape; the marshal might raise a
The severity of this measure led to gross abuses and defeated its purpose; the number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and new personal liberty laws were enacted in Vermont (1850), Connecticut (1854), Rhode Island (1854), Massachusetts (1855), Michigan (1855), Maine (1855 and 1857), Kansas (1858) and Wisconsin (1858). The personal liberty laws forbade justices and judges to take cognizance of claims, extended habeas corpus and the privilege of jury trial to fugitives, and punished false testimony severely. In 1854, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin went so far as to declare the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.[18][21]
These state laws were one of the grievances that South Carolina would later use to justify its secession from the Union. Attempts to carry into effect the law of 1850 aroused much bitterness.[
Civil War-era legal status of fugitive slaves
With the beginning of the Civil War, the legal status of the slave was changed by his masters being in arms.
By the congressional Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves of March 13, 1862, any slave of a disloyal master who was in territory occupied by Northern troops was declared ipso facto free. But for some time the Fugitive Slave Law was considered still to hold in the case of fugitives from masters in the border states who were loyal to the Union government, and it was not until June 28, 1864, that the Act of 1850 was fully repealed.[18][22]
See also
- Slave Trade Acts
- Turner Chapel (Oakville)
- Fugitive slave advertisements in the United States
Notes
- S2CID 143259317.
- ^ Finkelman, Paul (2012). "State Rights, Southern hypocrisy, and the crisis of the Union". Akron Law Review: 453.
- ^ New York and New Hampshire claimed what was to become Vermont. Kentucky was a county of Virginia. Tennessee was a county of North Carolina. Even less neatly, delegates attended the colonial Virginia House of Burgesses from north of the Ohio River in what would later be Ohio and Illinois.
- ISBN 978-0801077739.
- ^ "Avalon Project - the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19, 1643".
- S2CID 150232893.
- ^ Bernstein, R.B. (1999). "Parliamentary Principles, American Realities: The Continental and Confederation Congresses, 1774–1789". In Bowling, Kenneth R. & Kennon, Donald R. (eds.). Inventing Congress: Origins & Establishment Of First Federal Congress. pp. 76–108.
- ^ a b Merriam 1888:308–310, Leg. Hist. Ord. of 1787.
- ^ Merriam 1888:314, Leg. Hist. Ord. of 1787
- ^ "Avalon Project - Northwest Ordinance; July 13, 1787". avalon.law.yale.edu. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ISBN 0-313-31385-7.
northwest ordinance tobacco .
- JSTOR 3123523.
- ^ "Avalon Project - Northwest Ordinance; July 13, 1787". avalon.law.yale.edu. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ^ "Article IV". LII / Legal Information Institute. 2009-11-12. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ISBN 0-313-31385-7.
- ^ "Redirection of: The President's House". www.ushistory.org. Archived from the original on 2009-09-23. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ^ Carol Wilson, Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780–1865, University Press of Kentucky, 1994
- ^ a b c d e f g h Chisholm 1911, p. 289.
- ^ a b c 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, p. 80 (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003 paper edn.)
- ^ Wisconsin Supreme Court (1855). Unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act. Milwaukee.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ 12 Stat. 200, c.166.
References
- Campbell, Stanley W. (1970). The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850–1860. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1141-6.
- ISBN 0-19-515805-9.
- ISBN 0-19-508451-9.
- Merriam, John M. (1888). "The Legislative History of the Ordinance of 1787" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. New Series Vol. V. Worcester: American Antiquarian Society (published 1889): 303–342.
Attribution:
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fugitive Slave Laws". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 288–289. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- . . 1914.
- New International Encyclopedia. 1906.
.
- The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
.
- McCarthy, B. Eugene; Doughton, Thomas L. (2007). From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester Slave Narratives. University of Massachusetts Press.