Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/616

 to the owner the fair restoration of his property, effectually to guard, on the other, against any abuses in the application of that remedy.

"In all cases of arrest, within a state, of persons charged with offenses; in all cases of the pursuit of fugitives from justice from one state to another state; in all cases of extradition, provided for by treaties between foreign powers, the proceeding uniformly is summary. It has never been thought necessary to apply, in cases of that kind, the form and ceremonies of a final trial. And, when that trial does take place, it is in the state or country from which the party has fled, and not in that in which he has found refuge. By the express language of the constitution, whether the fugitive is held to service or labor, or not, is to be determined by the laws of the state from which he fled; and, consequently, it is most proper that the tribunals of that state should expound and administer its own laws. If there have been any instances of abuse in the erroneous arrest of fugitives from service or labor, the committee have not obtained knowledge of them. They believe that none have occurred, and that such are not likely to occur. But, in order to guard against the possibility of their occurrence, the committee have prepared, and herewith report a section, (marked B,) to be offered to the fugitive bill now before the senate. According to this section, the owner of a fugitive from service or labor is, when practicable, to carry with him to the state in which the person is found a record from a competent tribunal, adjudicating the fact of elopement and slavery, with a general description of the fugitive. This record, properly attested and certified under the official seal of the court, being taken to the state where the person owing service or labor is found, is to be held competent and sufficient evidence of the facts which had been adjudicated, and will leave nothing more to be done than to identify the fugitive.

"Numerous petitions have been presented praying for a trial by jury, in the case of arrest of fugitives from service or labor in the non-slaveholding states. It has been already shown that this would be entirely contrary to practice and uniform usage in all similar cases. Under the name of a popular and cherished institution — an institution, however, never applied in cases of preliminary proceeding, and only in cases of final trial — there would be a complete mockery of justice, so far as the owner of the fugitive is concerned. If the trial by jury be admitted, it would draw after it its usual consequences; of continuance from time to time, to bring evidence from distant places; of second or new trials, in cases where the jury is hung, or the verdict set aside; and of revisals of the verdict and conduct of the juries by competent tribunals. During the progress of all these dilatory and expensive proceedings, what security is there as to the custody and forthcoming of the fugitive upon their termination? And if, finally, the claimant should be successful, contrary to what happens in ordinary litigation between free persons, he would have to bear all the burdens and expenses of the litigation, without indemnity, and would learn, by sad ex perience, that he had by far better abandoned his right in the first instance, than to establish it at such unremunerated cost and heavy sacrifice.

"But, whilst the committee conceive that a trial by jury in a state where a