The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a public territory. Type Bicameral Houses Senate House of Representatives President of the Senate President pro tempore Dick Cheney, (R) since January 20, 2001 Robert C. Byrd, (D) since January 4, 2007 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, (D) since January 4, 2007 Members 535 plus 4 Delegates and 1 Resident Commissioner Political... Year 1793 (MDCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar). ... For the game, see: 1850 (board game) 1850 (MDCCCL) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday [1] of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

Colonial era

The Articles of Confederation of the New England Confederation of 1643 contained a clause that provided for the return of fugitive slaves. This seems to have been the only instance of an intercolonial provision for the return of fugitive slaves; there were frequent escapes by slaves from one colony to another, but it was not until after the growth of anti-slavery sentiment and the acquisition of western territory that it became necessary to adopt a uniform method for the return of fugitive slaves. These were found in the Ordinance of 1787, which in Article VI provided, "That any person escaping into the same (i.e. the Territory), 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." Mercator projection: New England Confederation in yellow The United Colonies of New England, commonly known as the New England Confederation, was a political and military alliance of the British colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. ... // Events January 21 - Abel Tasman discovers Tonga February 6 - Abel Tasman discovers the Fiji islands. ... The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom Ordinance) was an act of the Continental Congress of the United States passed on July 13, 1787 under the Articles of Confederation. ...

The same process of compromise between free and slave states continued when the Federal government was established. It was written in the Fugitive Slave Clause at Article Four of the United States Constitution, Section 2, Clause 3, that, "No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." The Fugitive slave clause refers to a provision in Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, that requires that slaves that escaped to another state be returned back to the owner in the state from which they escaped. ...

1793 statute

Main article: Fugitive Slave Law of 1793

The first specific legislation on the subject was enacted on February 12, 1793, and like the Ordinance for the Northwest Territory and Article Four of the Constitution, it did not contain the word slave; by its provisions any Federal district or circuit judge or any state magistrate was authorized to decide finally and without a jury trial the status of an alleged fugitive. The 1793 Fugitive Slave Law was written in response to a conflict between Pennsylvania and Virginia. ... is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1793 (MDCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar). ... the transportation of slaves into the northwest organ and washington ...

The measure soon met with strong opposition in the Northern states and Personal Liberty Laws were passed to hamper officials in the execution of the law; Indiana in 1824 and Connecticut in 1828 provided jury trial for fugitives who appealed from an original decision against them. In 1840, New York and Vermont extended the right of trial by jury to fugitives and provided them with attorneys. As early as the first decade of the 19th century, individual dissatisfaction with the law of 1793 had taken the form of systematic assistance rendered to African Americans escaping from the South to Canada or New England: the so-called Underground Railroad. The Personal Liberty Laws were passed in the 1850s by nine of the northern states in response to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. ... For other uses, see Indiana (disambiguation). ... Official language(s) none (de facto English) Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport[2] Largest metro area Hartford Metro Area[3] Area  Ranked 48th in the US  - Total 5,543[4] sq mi (14,356 km²)  - Width 70 miles (113 km)  - Length 110 miles (177 km)  - % water 12. ... This article is about the state. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Historic Southern United States. ... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... H. B. Lindsley, Harriet Tubman, c. ...

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States 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 . The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ... Prigg v. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ...

1850 statute

Main article: Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

The demand from the South for more effective Federal legislation was voiced in the second fugitive slave law, drafted by Senator James Murray Mason of Virginia, grandson of George Mason, and enacted on September 18, 1850, as a part of the Compromise of 1850. Special commissioners were to have concurrent jurisdiction with the U.S. circuit and district courts and the inferior courts of territories in enforcing the law; fugitives could not testify in their own behalf; no trial by jury was provided. An April 24, 1851 poster warning colored people in Boston about policemen acting as slave catchers. ... James M. Mason James Murray Mason (November 3, 1798 - April 28, 1871) was a United States Representative and United States Senator from Virginia. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... is the 261st day of the year (262nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the game, see: 1850 (board game) 1850 (MDCCCL) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday [1] of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Henry Clay takes the floor of the Old Senate Chamber; Millard Fillmore presides as Calhoun and Webster look on. ...

Penalties were imposed upon marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive should escape, and upon individuals who aided Negroes to escape; the marshal might raise a posse comitatus; a fee of $10 was paid to the commissioner when his decision favored the claimant, only $5 when it favored the fugitive; and both the fact of the escape and the identity of the fugitive were determined on purely ex parte testimony. If a slave was brought in and returned to the master, the person who brought in the slave would receive a hefty sum of $10, today equivalent to a value of $257, per slave. In common law, posse comitatus (Latin, county force, meaning a sort of local militia) referred to the authority wielded by the county sheriff to conscript any able-bodied male over the age of fifteen to assist him in keeping the peace or to pursue and arrest a felon; compare hue... Ex parte is a Latin legal term meaning from (by or for) one party (pronounced ekss par-TAY or ekss par-TEE, although the proper Latin is Eks PAR-teh). An ex parte decision is one decided by a judge without requiring the plaintiff to be present. ...

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). These Personal Liberty Laws forbade justices and judges to take cognizance of claims, extended the Habeas corpus act and the privilege of jury trial to fugitives, and punished false testimony severely. In 1859, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin went so far as to declare the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional. Abolition is the act of formally destroying something through legal means, either by making it illegal, or simply no longer allowing it to exist in any form. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... Official language(s) None (English and French de facto) Capital Augusta Largest city Portland Area  Ranked 39th  - Total 33,414 sq mi (86,542 km²)  - Width 210 miles (338 km)  - Length 320 miles (515 km)  - % water 13. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... For other uses, see Habeas corpus (disambiguation). ...

These state laws were one of the grievances that South Carolina used to justify their secession in the coming future. Attempts to carry into effect the law of 1850 aroused much bitterness. The arrests of Sims and of Shadrach in Boston in 1851; of Jerry M. Henry, in Syracuse, New York, in the same year; of Anthony Burns in 1854, in Boston; and of the two Garner families in 1856, in Cincinnati, with other cases arising under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, probably had as much to do with bringing on the Civil War as did the controversy over slavery in the Territories.^{[citation needed]} Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ... Nickname: Location of Syracuse within the state of New York Coordinates: , City Government  - Mayor Matthew Driscoll (D) Area  - City 66. ... Cincinnati, Ohio viewed from the SW, across the Ohio River from Kentucky. ... Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total...

Civil War-era legal status of fugitive slaves

See also: Emancipation Proclamation

With the beginning of the Civil War, the legal status of the slave was changed by his masters being in arms. Benjamin Franklin Butler, in May 1861, declared black slaves contraband of war. A confiscation bill was passed in August 1861 discharging from his service or labor any slave employed in aiding or promoting any insurrection against the government of the United States. By an act of July 17, 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 repealed. Wikisource has original text related to this article: Emancipation Proclamation Reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. ... Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as its governor. ... is the 198th day of the year (199th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about 1862 . ... Look up Ipso facto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... is the 179th day of the year (180th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1864 (MDCCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...

References

• Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860 (1970)
• Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic : An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery (2002)
• John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (1999)

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Encyclopædia Britannica, the eleventh edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...