Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/615

 "The committee will now proceed to the consideration of, and to report upon the subject of persons owing service or labor in one stale escaping into another. The text of the constitution is quite clear: "No person held to labor or service in one state, "under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation threin, be discharged from such service or labor, but "shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due." Nothing can be more explicit than this language; nothing more manifest than the right to demand, and the obligation to deliver up to the claimant, any such fugitive. And the constitution addresses itself alike to the states composing the Union and to the general government. If, indeed, there were any difference in the duty to enforce this portion of the constitution between the states and the federal government, it is more clear that it is that of the former than of the latter. But it is the duty of both. It is well known and incontestable that citizens of shareholding states encounter the greatest difficulty in obtaining the benefit of this provision of the constitution.

"The attempt to recapture a fugitive is almost always the subject of great irritation and excitement, and often leads to most unpleasant, if not perilous collisions. An owner of a slave, it is quite notorious, cannot pursue his property, for the purpose of its recovery, in some of the states, without [sic]iminent personal hazard. This is a deplorable state of things, which ought to be remedied. The law of 1793 has been found wholly ineffectual, and requires more stringent enactments. There is especially a deficiency in the number of public functionaries authorized to afford aid in the seizure and arrest of fugitives. Various states have declined to afford aid and cooperation in the surrender of fugitives from labor, as the committee believe, from a misconception of their duty, arising under the constitution of the United States. It is true that a decision of the supreme court of the United States has given countenance to them in witholding their assistance. But the committee cannot but believe that the intention of the supreme court has been misunderstood. k They cannot but think that that court merely meant that laws of the several states, which created obstacles in the way of the recovery of fugitives, were not authorized by the constitution, and not that the state laws affording facilities in the recovery of fugitives were forbidden by that instrument. The non-slaveholding states, whatever sympathies any of their citizens may feel for persons who escape from other states, cannot discharge themselves from an obligation to enforce the constitution of the United States. All parts of the instrument being dependent upon, and connected with each other, ought to be fairly and justly enforced. If some states may seek to exonerate themselves from one portion of the constitution, other states may endeavor to evade the performance of the other portions of it; and thus the instrument, in some of the most important provisions, might become inoperative and invalid.

"But, whatever may be the conduct of individual states, the duty of the general government is perfectly clear. That duty is, to amend the existing law, and provide an effectual remedy for the recovery of fugitives from service or labor. In devising such a remedy, congress ought, whilst, on the one hand,