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who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

"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."

This provision of the Constitution seems to have met with little exception or opposition, or none at all, so far as I know, in Massachusetts. Every body seems to have regarded it as necessary and proper. The members of the convention of that State for adopting the Constitution were particularly jealous of every article and section which might in any degree intrench on personal liberty. Every page of their debates evinces this spirit. And yet I do not remember that any one of them found the least fault with this provision. The opponents and deriders of the Constitution, of this day, have sharper eyes in discerning dangers to liberty than General Thompson, Holder Slocum, and Major Nason had, in 1788; to say nothing of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and others, friends of the Constitution, and among them the very eminent men who were delegates in that convention from Newburyport: Rufus King, Benjamin Greenleaf, Theophilus Parsons, and Jonathan Titcomb.

The latter clause, quoted above, it may be worth while to remark, was borrowed, in substance, from the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, which was drawn up by that great man of your own county, and a contemporary of your fathers, Nathan Dane.

Mr. Dane had very venerable New England authority for the insertion of this provision in the Ordinance which he prepared. In the year 1643, there was formed a confederation between the four New England Colonies, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven; and in the eighth article of that confederation it is stipulated as follows: "It is also agreed, if any servant run away from his master into any other of these confederated jurisdictions, that, in such cases, 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." And in the "Articles of Agreement," entered into in 1650, between the New England Colonies and "the delegates of Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New Netherland," it was stipulated that "the same way and course" concerning fugitives should be observed between the English Colonies and New Netherland, as had been established in the "Articles of Confederation" between the English Colonies themselves.

On the 12th of February, 1793, under the administration of General Washington, Congress passed an act for carrying into effect both these clauses of the Constitution. It is entitled, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters."

The first two sections of this law provide for the case of fugitives from justice; and they declare, that whenever the executive authority of any State or Territory shall demand any person, as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any State or Territory to which such person shall have fled, and shall produce the copy of an indictment, or an affidavit made before a magistrate, charging the person so demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the State or Territory whence the person so charged fled, it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the State or Territory to which such person shall have fled, to cause him or her to be arrested or secured, and notice of the arrest to be given to the executive authority making such demand, or to the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and to cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear; but if no such agent shall appear within six months, the prisoner may be discharged; and all costs or expenses incurred by arresting, securing, or transmitting the fugitive shall be paid by the State or Territory making the demand; and that any agent who shall receive such fugitive into his custody shall be authorized to transport him to the State or Territory from which he fled; and any person rescuing or setting such person at liberty shall, on conviction, be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars, and be imprisoned, not exceeding one year.

The last two sections of the act respect persons held to labor

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in any of the United States or Territories, escaping into any other State or Territory; and are in these words:

"SECT. 3. And be it further enacted, That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the Territories on the northwest or south of the River Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said States or Territories, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered. to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any judge of the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, residing or being within the State, or before any magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made; and upon proof, to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such State or Territory, that the person so seized or arrested doth, under the laws of the State or Territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor to the State or Territory from which he or she fled.

"SECT. 4. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney, in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from labor, or shall rescue such fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given or declared, or shall harbor or conceal such person, after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, shall, for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars; which penalty may be recovered by and for the benefit of such claimant, by action of debt, in any court proper to try the same; saving, moreover, to the person claiming such labor or service, his right of action for, or on account of, the said injuries, or either of them."

It will be observed, that in neither of the two cases does the law provide for the trial of any question whatever by jury, in the State in which the arrest is made. The fugitive from justice is to be delivered, on the production of an indictment, or a regular affidavit, charging the party with having committed the crime; and the fugitive from service is to be removed to the State from which he fled, upon proof, before any authorized magistrate, in the State where he may be found, either by witnesses or affidavit, that the person claimed doth owe service to

the party claiming him, under the laws of the State from which he fled. In both cases, the proceeding is to be preliminary and summary; in both cases, the party is to be removed to the State from which he fled, that his liabilities, and his rights, may be there regularly tried and adjudged by the tribunals of that State, according to its laws. In the case of an alleged fugitive from justice, charged with crime, it is not to be taken for granted, in the State to which he has fled, that he is guilty; nor in that State is he to be tried, or punished. He is only to be remitted for trial to the place from which he came. In the case of the alleged fugitive from service, the courts of the State in which he is arrested are not to decide that, in fact or in law, he does owe service to any body. He, too, is only to be remitted, for an inquiry into his rights and the proper adjudication of them, to the State from which he fled; the tribunals of which understand its laws, and are in the constant habit of trying the question of slavery or no slavery, on the application of individuals, as an ordinary act of judicial authority. There is not a slave State in the Union, in which independent judicial tribunals are not always open to receive and decide upon petitions, or applications for freedom; nor do I know, nor have I heard it alleged, that the decisions of these tribunals are not fair and upright. Such of them as I have seen evince, certainly, these qualities in the judges.

This act of Congress of the 12th of February, 1793, appears to have been well considered, and to have passed with little opposition. There is no evidence known to me that any body at the time regarded any of its provisions as repugnant to religion, liberty, the Constitution, or humanity. The two Senators of Massachusetts at that time were that distinguished legislator and patriot of your own county, George Cabot; and that other citizen of Massachusetts, among the most eminent of his day for talent, purity of character, and every virtue, Caleb Strong. Mr. Cabot, indeed, was one of the committee for preparing the bill. It appears to have passed the Senate without a division. In the House of Representatives it was supported by Mr. Goodhue, Mr. Gerry, both then, I believe, of your county of Essex, (Mr. Goodhue afterwards a Senator of the United States, and Mr. Gerry afterwards Vice-President of the United States,) Mr. Ames, Mr. Bourne, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Sedgwick, members

from Massachusetts, and was passed by a vote of forty-eight to seven; of these seven, one being from Virginia, one from Maryland, one from New York, and four from the New England States; and of these four, one, Mr. Thatcher, from Massachusetts.

I am not aware that there exists any published account of the debates on the passage of this act. I have been able to find none. I have searched the original files, however, and I find among the papers several propositions for modifications and amendments, of various kinds; but none suggesting the propriety of any jury trial in the State where the party should be arrested.

For many years, little or no complaint was made against this law, nor was it supposed to be guilty of the offences and enormities which have since been charged upon it. It was passed for the purpose of complying with a direct and solemn injunction of the Constitution; it did no more than was believed to be necessary to accomplish that single purpose; and it did that in a cautious, mild manner, to be everywhere conducted according to judicial proceedings.

I confess I see no more objection to the provisions of this law than was seen by Mr. Cabot and Mr. Strong, Mr. Goodhue and Mr. Gerry; and such provisions appear to me, as they appeared to them, to be absolutely necessary, if we mean to fulfil the duties positively and peremptorily enjoined upon us by the Constitution of the country. But since the agitation caused by Abolition societies and Abolition presses has to such an extent excited the public mind, these provisions have been rendered obnoxious and odious. Unwearied endeavors have been made, and but too successfully, to. rouse the passions of the people against them; and under the cry of universal freedom, and under that other cry, that there is a rule for the government of public men and private men which is of superior obligation to the Constitution of the country, several of the States have enacted laws to hinder, obstruct, and defeat the enactments in this act of Congress, to the utmost of their power. The Supreme Court of the United States has solemnly decided, that it is lawful for State officers and State magistrates to fulfil the duties enjoined upon them by the act of Congress of 1793, unless prohibited by State laws; and thereupon prohibitory State

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