New York had the same act, only varying in time,
which was nine months. While these two acts were in force, and supported
by public opinion, the traveler and sojourner was safe with his slaves
in those States, and the same in the other free States. There was no
trouble about fugitive slaves in those times."--(Note to Benton's
"Abridgment of Debates," vol. i, p. 417.)]
[Footnote 28: The Supreme Court of the United States in stating (through
Chief-Justice Taney) their decision in the "Dred Scott case," in 1857,
say: "In that portion of the United States where the labor of the negro
race was found to be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable to the
master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of
Independence; and, when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely
worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual
abolition in several others. But this change had not been produced by
any change of opinion in relation to this race, but because it was
discovered from experience that slave-labor was unsuited to the climate
and productions of these States; for some of these States, when it had
ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, were actively engaged in the
slave-trade; procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting
them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to
be profitable and suited to the climate and productions.
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