Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/140

 the process, nor the constitutionality of the act under which the process issues, can after such return be inquired into, either upon a writ of habeas corpus from a State, tribunal, or upon any other State process.” The opinion was written by Chief Justice Taney, the author of the famous Dred Scott decision. It attracted wide attention as the “Glover case,” and the proceedings under the fugitive slave law following it had powerfully stirred up the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the country. Indeed, the fugitive slave law of 1850, regarded as a part of the compromise measures which were to create for the anti-slavery North and the pro-slavery South a practicable “modus vivendi”—a way of peaceably getting along together—was a striking example of that kind of mistake which is justly said to amount to a crime in public policy—the mistake not seldom committed by compromisers, of going so far as to offend and defy the moral sense and the legitimate self-respect of the other. The old fugitive slave law, enacted in 1793, had authorized the owner of the fugitive slave to arrest him, to bring him before a United States judge or any State judge or magistrate and prove to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate that the person arrested owed service to the claimant under the laws of the State from which he had escaped; whereupon it was made the duty of the judge or magistrate to give a certificate that sufficient proof had been made; and this certificate was declared a sufficient warrant for removing the fugitive to the State from which he had escaped. It further imposed a fine of five hundred dollars for knowingly and willfully obstructing the execution of this law, or for harboring or concealing the fugitive after notice that he was a fugitive slave. It is true that this law was but imperfectly enforced and that, in spite of it, many fugitive slaves were concealed and