In the year 1850, an act was passed by the National Congress, under the provisions of the third clause, second section, and fourth Article of the Constitution, providing for the rendition of slaves who might escape from bondage into the Free-labor States. The sixth section of that law provided that the master of a fugitive slave, or his agent, might go into any State or Territory of the Republic, and, with or without legal warrant there obtained, seize such fugitive, and take him forthwith before any judge or commissioner whose duty it should be to hear and determine the case. On satisfactory proof being furnished him, such as the affidavit in writing, or other acceptable testimony, by the pursuing owner or agent, that the arrested person “owes labor” to the party that had arrested him, or to his principal, it was made the duty of said judge or commissioner to use the power of his office to assist the claimant in taking the fugitive back into bondage. It was further provided, that in no trial or hearing under the act, should the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and that the parties claiming the fugitive should not be molested in their work of carrying the person back “by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.”
The last clause of the act was so offensive to every sentiment of humanity and justice, and so repugnant to the feelings of the people in the Free-labor States, that while respect for law, so deeply interwoven in the texture of American society, caused a general acquiescence in the requirements of the statute, there was rebellion against it in every Christian heart. It was plainly seen that, under that law, free negroes might, by the perjury of kidnappers, and the denial of the common right to defense allowed to the vilest criminal, be carried away into hopeless slavery, beyond the reach of pity, mercy, or law. This perception of possible wrong caused the Legislatures of several of the Free-labor States to pass laws for the protection of free colored citizens within their borders, made so by the circumstance of birth or existing laws.1
In the framing of laws consonant with the public sentiment against the Fugitive Slave Law, some of the Legislatures perhaps transcended the constitutional limits, and enacted statutes in direct contravention of the National law. Others were strictly within the limits of constitutional requirements; and all might be speedily made inoperative by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, a majority of whose nine judges were slaveholders, and decidedly in sympathy with that class. Up to the time of the delivery of the President's Message, not a single case had been adjudicated under a Personal Liberty Law in any State, and their practical hostility to the interests of the slaveholders was as unreal as the tyranny and oppression of
