The halls of Congress
afforded the vantage-ground from which assaults were made upon these
guarantees. The Legislatures of various Northern States enacted laws to
hinder the execution of the provisions made for the rendition of
fugitives from service; State officials lent their aid to the work of
thwarting them; and city mobs assailed the officers engaged in the duty
of enforcing them.
With regard to the provision of the Constitution above quoted, for the
restoration of fugitives from service or labor, my own view was, and is,
that it was not a proper subject for legislation by the Federal
Congress, but that its enforcement should have been left to the
respective States, which, as parties to the compact of union, should
have been held accountable for its fulfillment. Such was actually the
case in the earlier and better days of the republic. No fugitive
slave-law existed, or was required, for two years after the organization
of the Federal Government, and, when one was then passed, it was merely
as an incidental appendage to an act regulating the mode of rendition of
fugitives from _justice_--not from service or labor.[27]
In 1850 a more elaborate law was enacted as part of the celebrated
compromise of that year. But the very fact that the Federal Government
had taken the matter into its own hands, and provided for its execution
by its own officers, afforded a sort of pretext to those States which
had now become hostile to this provision of the Constitution, not only
to stand aloof, but in some cases to adopt measures (generally known as
"personal liberty laws") directly in conflict with the execution of the
provisions of the Constitution.
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