were based. He announced that the law must be carried out through national authorities alone; the States or State magistrates could not be forced into action.146 After this, many States, seeing the advantage thus given them, passed laws which forbade the officers to aid in a fugitive slave case, and also denied the use of their jails for imprisonment.147 Plainly the Prigg case showed a growing indisposition on the part of the States to carry out the law, however severe its provisions might be; and this disposition to evade its obligations is still further evidenced by the cases given in the next chapter.
§ 26. Necessity of more stringent fugitive slave provisions.—The increasing number of rescues,148 and the occurrence of several cases of resistance, proved conclusively the inadequacy of the law of 1793. After the Prigg decision the provisions made for its execution through national powers were entirely insufficient. Underlying all these acts, the South also could but perceive a sentiment the growth of which, unless checked in some way, would at last permanently injure, if not destroy, their peculiar institution.
§ 27. Action of Congress from 1847 to 1850.—From 1822 until 1848 apparently no effort was made to secure a new law. Then a petition received in 1847 from the Legislature of Kentucky, urging the importance of passing such laws as would enable the citizens of slaveholding States to recover their slaves when they escaped into non-slaveholding States,149 gave rise to a bill from the Committee on the Judiciary.150 The bill provided "for the more effectual execution of the third clause of the second section of the Fourth Article of the Constitution."151 It passed only to the second reading. In 1849, Mr. Meade proposed in the House to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to report a fugitive slave bill.152 No report apparently was ever made, but this was the last ineffectual proposition. In 1850, a new law was successfully carried in both Houses.
§ 28. Slavery in the District of Columbia.—During this period, from 1840 to 1850, the subject of slavery and fugitives in the District of Columbia began to occasion debate, which was never long silenced. It was notorious that almost under the windows of the Capitol negroes were confined in public jails on the ground that they were fugitives; and that a free negro so confined might be sold for his jail fees. Resolutions for an investigation of the condition of the jails were offered in 1848 by Mr. Giddings;153 and Mr. Hall also introduced more sweeping propositions to repeal all laws of Congress and of Maryland which authorized or required courts, officers, or magistrates to issue process for arrest or commitment to the jail of the District of any fugitive slave.154 Congress, however, was in a mood too conciliatory toward the South to consider these propositions; and no action was taken.
The Second Fugitive Slave Act.
§ 29. The second Fugitive Slave Act (1850).—In the early part of the first session of the Thirty-first Congress, Mr. Mason of Virginia introduced a bill to make the provisions of the fugitive slave act more severe,155 and the bill was reported from the Committee on the Judiciary, January 16, 1850. Two additional amendments were soon offered by Mr. Mason. The first imposed a fine of one thousand dollars and imprisonment for twelve months upon any one who should obstruct the execution of the law. The second provided that the testimony of a fugitive should not be admitted. Mr. Seward, in opposition, proposed on the 28th to allow a fugitive the right of trial by jury, with a fine of five thousand dollars and the forfeiture of office should the right be disallowed by any judge or marshal.156
Mr. Clay's "Omnibus Bill," by which he intended to settle the territorial question then before Congress, and at the same time to check the antislavery movement, contained a fugitive slave clause, though not so severe in its provisions as Mr. Mason's.157 This bill, however, was not debated as a whole, but each proposition considered separately, and thus Mr. Mason's bill became the basis of the fugitive slave provision in the Compromise of 1850.
The measure was considered, and various amendments were offered, until August 26, 1850, when it was passed by the Senate, and a few days later by the House;158 the signature of President Fillmore was readily appended, and it became law, September 18, 1850.159
§ 30. Provisions of the second Fugitive Slave Act.—Every provision of the act was arranged for the protection and benefit of the slaveholders. It was based upon the law of 1793, but a number of new regulations were added.160 Commissioners were to be chosen by the Circuit Courts of the United States and the Superior Courts of the Territories, to act with the judges of those courts in fugitive slave cases. Such commissioners could be fined one thousand dollars for refusing to issue a writ, and were liable for the value of any slave escaping from them. The testimony required for rendition was the official declaration of the fact of the escape of a slave by two witnesses, and the establishment of his identity by oath. The testimony of the accused could not be admitted. The right of trial by jury was not affirmed, and was therefore practically denied. A sheriff might call upon any bystander for help in executing the law, and the penalty for harboring or aiding in a rescue was increased from five hundred dollars, as in 1793, to one thousand dollars, and imprisonment for not more than six months. Should the slave escape, damages to the same amount were to be paid to the claimant. If a mob were feared, military force might be employed; and by a discrimination little likely to win respect for the act, the fee of the commissioner was to be increased from five to ten dollars whenever the case was decided in favor of the claimant.
Arguments for the Bill.
§ 31. Arguments for the bill.—The debate on the Fugitive Slave Bill more than any other part of the Compromise illustrates the character of the slavery conflict. Most of the Southern members urged the immediate necessity of a new law, but some of the more ardent considered the evil to be one which could be reached only through a change in public sentiment, and they thought all legislation valueless.161 Mr. Mason thus presented the evils with which the law must cope. He stated that the border States had found it an impossibility to reclaim a fugitive when he once got within the boundaries of a non-slaveholding State; "and this bill, or rather the amendments, … have been framed with a great deal of consideration, to reach, if practicable, the evils which this experience has demonstrated to exist, and to furnish the appropriate remedy in enabling the owner of a fugitive to reclaim him." Under the existing laws, "you may as well go down into the sea and endeavor to recover from his native element a fish which has escaped from you, as expect to recover such a fugitive. Every difficulty is thrown in your way by the population. … There are armed mobs, rescues. This is the real state of things."162
Not only were the laws thus set aside by individuals, but also through the Underground Railroad an organized system of depredation was carried on, whereby thousands of dollars were every year lost to the slaveholder.163 As an illustration of the extent to which this disregard of law was carried, Mr. Yulee, one of the most extreme of the Southern men, instanced a convention which was then in session in New York "for the very purpose, openly avowed, of congratulation upon their successful violation of the Constitution in respect to fugitives, and to devise ways and means to encourage the escape of slaves."164
Such, according to the Southern Congressmen, was the condition of affairs. They then proceeded to contrast it with the situation as contemplated by the Constitution, and supported by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Prigg case. Mr. Butler insisted that this bill required "nothing more than is enjoined by the Constitution, and which contains the bond of union and the security of harmony; and in the name of Washington, I would invoke all parties to observe, maintain, and defend it." He said it was the handiwork of sages and patriots, and resulted from intelligent concessions, for the benefit of all.165 Many speeches were filled with prophecies, more or less openly expressed, of the dissolution of the Union. Mr. Soulé said the South must fight for its rights, since it is the weaker of the two sections.166 It had come down to the question, How could the Union be preserved?167 Some concessions must
