THE ATTITUDE OF CERTAIN NORTHERN STATES BEGINNING in 1837, Massachusetts adopted the first of the so-called Personal Liberty Laws, which were followed by others of like import enacted by Vermont, New York and Connecticut. The ostensible object of these statutes was to protect free negroes, but as no such laws were necessary until the rise of the Abolitionists and the operations of the Underground Railroad, they were generally accepted as efforts on the part of these states to assist these agencies and defeat the clause of the constitution of the United States which provided for the return of fugitive slaves. In 1842, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that so much of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 as authorized or required state officials to assist in executing the law was unconstitutional, and that upon Federal authorities must rest the whole burden.1 This decision was followed by a new series of statutes in Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.' On the 18th of September, 1850, Congress passed another Fugitive Slave Law amending the act of 1793 so as to charge Federal officials with the whole duty of carrying into effect the clause in the constitution providing for the return of fugitive slaves, and to remedy the difficulties resulting from the action of the Abolitionists and the acts 'See Decision in Case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539. THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS 207 passed by certain states as above referred to. This aroused fresh antagonism to the constitution and the efforts of the Federal Government to carry the same into effect. The constitutionality of the new law was denied and though affirmed by the Supreme Court, its execution in the foregoing states was much embarrassed by a new series of state statutes. Laws of like import, with like results, were also enacted by Wisconsin, Michigan, Connecticut and Maine. In some instances, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States affirming the constitutionality of the statute was challenged by the legislative department of state governments, and the right of the former tribunal to fix the obligations of states and citizens with respect to the law strenuously denied. Thus, in Wisconsin one Sherman M. Booth had been indicted in the Federal Court for a violation of the Fugitive Slave Law enacted by Congress, and, after trial and conviction, was sentenced for the offense. An application for a writ of habeas corpus was presented by Booth to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and his release prayed for on the ground that the Federal statute was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin took cognizance of the case and discharged the prisoner from the custody of the Federal authorities.1 An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States where the constitutionality of the Federal statute was affirmed, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin reversed and Booth remanded to custody. Thereupon, the General Assembly of Wisconsin on the 16th of 1In re Sherman M. Booth, 3rd Wisconsin Rep., p. 13. "Ableman vs. Booth and United States vs. Booth, 21st Howard, p. 506. 208 STATE DEFIANCE OF FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS March, 1859, adopted a series of resolutions in which, after denying the right of the United States Supreme Court to take cognizance of the above mentioned case, they declared: "That the government, formed by the constitution of the United States, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the powers delegated to itself: but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. "That the principle and construction contended for by the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers; that the several states which formed that instrument being sovereign and independent have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a positive defiance by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument is the right remedy."" These outspoken and persistent attempts of great states to repudiate their obligations to the constitution and to nullify the laws of Congress had a most reactionary influence upon slaveholders and their sympathizers in Virginia and the South and filled the minds of thoughtful men with the gravest forebodings for the peace and preservation of the Union. President Buchanan in his message to Congress, December, 1860, refers to the action of the states in nullifying the Journal of the General Assembly of Wisconsin, Session 1859, pp. 463 and 865. CONGRESS ON STATE INTERFERENCE 209 Fugitive Slave Law enacted by Congress, as "the most palpable violation of constitutional duty which has yet been committed." Governor Banks in his address before the Legislature of Massachusetts which assembled on the first Wednesday in January, 1861, referring to the statute enacted in that state antagonistic to the act of Congress for the return of fugitive slaves, and the consequent imputation which it brought upon the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union and its constitution, said: "It is because in the face of her just claims to high honor I do not love to hear unjust reproaches passed upon her fame that I say as I do, in the presence of God and with a heart filled with responsibilities that must rest upon every American citizen in these distempered times, I cannot but regard the maintenance of a statute, although it may be within the extremest limits of constitutional power, which is so unnecessary to the public weal and so detrimental to the public peace as an inexcusable public wrong. I hope by common consent it may be removed from the statute book and such guarantees as individual freedom demands be sought in new legislation." Congress, in February, 1861, adopted the report of the Committee of Thirty-three of which Thomas Corwin of Ohio was chairman, which after reciting "that all attempts on the part of the Legislatures of any of the states to obstruct or hinder the recovery," of fugitive slaves, "are in derogation of the constitution . . . and dangerous to the peace of the Union," resolved "That the several states be respectfully requested to cause their statutes to be revised, with a view to ascertain 'History of Massachusetts in the Civil War, Schouler, Vol. 1, p. 6. 210 RHODE ISLAND ALONE ACCEDES if any of them are in conflict with or tend to embarrass or hinder the execution of the laws of the United States for the delivery up of persons held to labour by the laws of any state and escaping therefrom; and the Senate and House of Representatives earnestly request that all enactments having such tendency be forthwith repealed as required by a just sense of constitutional obligations and by a due regard for the peace of the Republic." President Lincoln in his inaugural address, referring to the clause of the constitution providing for the return of fugitive slaves, and the contention as to whether the same should be executed by Federal or state officials, said: "If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath should go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?" Despite these considerations, Rhode Island alone repealed the obnoxious statutes, and great leaders of the Republican Party frankly confessed that the constitution and the law would not be respected in certain of the Northern States. Salmon P. Chase, speaking in the Peace Conference at Washington, in February, 1861, alluding to the provision of the constitution for the return of fugitive slaves, said: "The people of the free states, however, who believe that slave-holding is wrong cannot and will not aid in the reclamation, and the stipulation becomes therefore a dead letter."2 Of the Personal Liberty Laws Mr. George Lunt of Boston in his work, Origin of the Late War, says: "They con 'See Reports of Thirty-second Congress, and Twenty Years of Congress, Blaine, pp. 258-265. "Debates in Peace Conference Convention, Crittenden, p. 430. |