Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 1.djvu/425

 any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the state, or before any magistrate of a county, city or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral 12, 1793, whether the alleged slave owes his service or labour, is a question for the jury to decide. Hill v. Low, 4 Wash. C. C. R. 327.

If the defendant knowingly obstructs the owner or his agent in seizing the fugitive, he cannot excuse himself against the penalty, by pleading ignorance of the law, or an honest belief that the person was not a fugitive from service or labour. Ibid.

Mere obstruction, hindrance, or interruption, is no offence under this act, unless it be interposed to prevent a seizure in the first instance, or a re-capture in case the fugitives after seizure should escape; and the offence in such case would be complete, although the owner should ultimately succeed in making the arrest. Ibid.

After the arrest is consummated, no subsequent obstruction, whilst the arrest continues, although it should afford an opportunity for escape, amounts to the offence; although it might possibly entitle the owner to an action at common law: or if an escape in consequence of the obstruction should happen, it might amount to the other offence, a rescue. Ibid.

The act of Congress, respecting fugitives owing service or labour, does not apply to slaves brought by their masters from one state to another, who afterwards escape or refuse to return. Ex parte Simmons, 4 Wash. C. C. R. 396.

A sojourner who brings his slave with him to Pennsylvania, cannot claim him as his slave, after he has resided there six months. He is free by the law of that state of March 1, 1780. Ibid.

Under the act respecting fugitives from service of February 12, 1793, the judge or magistrate has no power to issue a warrant to arrest the fugitive, or commit him after the investigation is over, and the certificate is granted; although in practice the judge commits pending the examination. The whole power is to examine, decide, and grant, or refuse the certificate. Worthington v. Preston, 4 Wash. C. C. R. 461.

If after the certificate is granted, the owner of a slave delivers him to the gaoler, who receives him, he is not officially liable for an escape, even although the commitment were under a warrant from the examining magistrate. Ibid.

Neither is the gaoler liable for an escape, as bailor, if there was no contract to pay him a reward for safe keeping, unless gross negligence be proved. Ibid.

On a question of freedom or slavery, the same rules of evidence prevail as in other cases concerning the right of property. Baldwin’s C. C. R. 577.

A bill of sale is not necessary to pass the right to a slave. Ibid.

A citizen of another state, from which a slave absconds into the state of Pennsylvania, may pursue and take him without warrant, and use as much force as is necessary to carry him back to his residence. Ibid.

Such an absconding slave may be arrested on Sunday; in the night time; in the house of another, if no breach of the peace is committed. Ibid.

This right of the master results from his ownership, and the right to the custody and service of the slave by the common law, and the 11th section of the abolition law of Pennsylvania, and other laws of that state. It is the same right by which bail may arrest the principal in another state. Ibid.

The constitution of the United States does not confer, but secures the right to reclaim fugitive slaves against state legislation. Baldwin’s Rep. 579.

It is no offence against the laws of a state for a master to take his absconding slave to the state from whence he absconded. The offence consists only in taking a free person by force, under the act of Pennsylvania of 1820, and the act of 1780. Ibid.

No person has a right to oppose the master in reclaiming his slave, or to demand proof of property. A judge or magistrate cannot order his arrest or detention, without oath, warrant, or probable cause. Ibid.

The master may use force in repelling such opposition, or the execution of such order, and the officer who gives such order, and all concerned in its execution, are trespassers. Ibid.

It is historically well known that the clause in the constitution of the United States, relating to persons owing service and labour in one state escaping into other states, was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding states the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union into which they might escape from the state where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding states; and indeed was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it is constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevailing in the non-slaveholding states, by preventing them from intermeddling with or obstructing or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves. Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 539.

The owner of a fugitive slave has the same right to seize and to take him in a state to which he has escaped or fled, that he had in the state from which he escaped; and it is well known that this right to seize or recapture is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding states. The court have not the slightest hesitation in holding, that under and in virtue of the constitution, the owner of the slave is clothed with authority in every state of the Union, to seize and recapture his slave; wherever he can do it without any breach of the peace, or illegal violence. In this sense, and to this extent, this clause in the constitution may properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation, state or national. Ibid.

The constitution does not stop at a mere annunciation of the rights of the owner to seize his absconding or fugitive slave, in the state to which he may have fled. If it had done so, it would have left the owner of the slave, in many cases, utterly without any adequate redress. Ibid.

The constitution declares that the fugitive slave shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom