Fugitive Slaves Part 13

After the Sims[280] and Burns[281] cases, in which the court-houses were again used in the place of jails, the heat of public indignation led to pet.i.tions to the legislature asking for a more stringent personal liberty law. A joint committee prepared a bill, which was pa.s.sed, but was vetoed by Governor Gardner, who had been advised by the Attorney General that some of the clauses were unconst.i.tutional. But so strong was the influence in its favor that it was pa.s.sed over the veto by a two-thirds vote.[282] The feeling that it was probably unconst.i.tutional, however, must have strengthened in the next three years: for in 1858[283] we find another act which amended the act of 1855. This limited some provisions, and repealed the following sections: the tenth, which required that any person who should give a certificate that a person claimed as a fugitive was a slave should forfeit any State office he might hold; the eleventh, which forbade any person acting as attorney for a claimant to appear as counsel or attorney in the State courts; the twelfth, which made a violation of the preceding section sufficient ground for the impeachment of any officer of the Commonwealth; the thirteenth, which forbade any United States officer empowered to give certificate or issue warrants from holding a State office; and the fourteenth, which made liable to removal any person holding a State judicial office who should also hold the office of Commissioner.

[Sidenote: Review of the Acts by States.]

=-- 82. Review of the acts by States.=--Of the other New England States, Maine had no personal liberty law until 1855.[284] Two years after, however, in 1857,[285] a portion of an act declaring free all slaves brought by their masters into that State was devoted to a provision "to punish any attempt to exercise authority over them."

In New Hampshire, one of the laws of 1857[286] enacted that every person holding any person as a slave for any length of time, under any pretence, should be deemed guilty of felony; but provided that this should not apply to United States officers executing any legal process.

Vermont, by an act in 1840,[287] extended to fugitives the right of trial by jury, but after three years this was repealed,[288] only to be renewed in 1850.[289]

Connecticut, as has been noticed, had no personal liberty law. Rhode Island first pa.s.sed such an act in 1848.[290] This forbade State officers to take cognizance of fugitive slave cases, and the use of State jails.

Another statute, in 1854,[291] extended these provisions so as to apply to the national law of 1850.

The act of 1840 was the only Personal Liberty Law of New York.[292]

Pennsylvania, some seven years later, forbade the use of jails, and punished State officers for partic.i.p.ating in fugitive slave cases.[293]

It also enacted a regulation of the same character as late as 1860.

Ohio made but one provision on the subject, and that lasted but a year.

Her jails were closed to suspected slaves in 1857,[294] but in 1858 this law was repealed.[295]

Michigan pa.s.sed such an act in 1855,[296] with the usual clauses on the use of jails and jury trial, and imposed a fine on false testimony against the defendant.

In 1858 Wisconsin and Kansas also pa.s.sed similar acts.[297]

=-- 83. Effect of the personal liberty laws.=--Since the avowed purpose of these laws was to obstruct the execution of one of the United States statutes, national and State legislation were thus brought into direct conflict; but the Fugitive Slave Law was held const.i.tutional by the Supreme Court, and any attempt to prevent its enforcement by positive means, however righteous from an ethical standpoint, must be considered an infraction of the Const.i.tution, and of the common understanding between the States, on which the Union was founded.[298] The provisions denying the use of State inst.i.tutions and officers, though distinctly unfriendly, were not unconst.i.tutional. Many of the Abolitionists, however, held the national law to be unconst.i.tutional, and at the same time morally so repugnant that it ought never to be executed.[299] The State laws were brought up by South Carolina, in her declaration of the causes of secession, as one of the chief grievances against the North; and President Buchanan, in his Message of 1860,[300] said they were "the most palpable violations of const.i.tutional duty which had yet been committed." They must certainly be cla.s.sed in principle with the Nullification Ordinance of 1832. Indeed, the legislature of Wisconsin, after the Supreme Court had overridden the decision of the State courts in the case of Ableman v. Booth that the national law was contrary to the national Const.i.tution, pa.s.sed some resolutions in which a "positive defiance is urged as the 'rightful remedy'" against such legislation.[301]

[Footnote 256: Revised Laws of Indiana, 1824, p. 221.]

[Footnote 257: Laws of Connecticut, 1838, p. 32.]

[Footnote 258: Acts and Resolves of Vermont, 1840, p. 13.]

[Footnote 259: Laws of New York, 1840, p. 174.]

[Footnote 260: See _ante_, -- 27.]

[Footnote 261: Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1843, p. 33.]

[Footnote 262: Acts and Resolves of Vermont, 1843, p. 11.]

[Footnote 263: Laws of Pennsylvania, 1847, p. 206.]

[Footnote 264: Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, 1848, p. 12.]

[Footnote 265: Laws of Vermont, 1850, p. 9.]

[Footnote 266: Public Acts of Connecticut, 1854, p. 80.]

[Footnote 267: Laws of Rhode Island, 1854, p. 22.]

[Footnote 268: Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1855, p. 924; 1858, p. 151.]

[Footnote 269: Laws of Michigan, 1855, p. 415.]

[Footnote 270: Laws of Maine, 1857, p. 38.]

[Footnote 271: Lalor, III. 162.]

[Footnote 272: Lalor, III. 162.]

[Footnote 273: Laws of Ohio, 1857, p. 170; 1857, p. 10.]

[Footnote 274: Lalor, III. 162.]

[Footnote 275: The following tabulation shows the provisions of the personal liberty laws as distributed among the States:--

_Judges and justices forbidden to take cognizance._ Ma.s.sachusetts, 1843; Vermont, 1843; Connecticut, 1838; Rhode Island, 1854; Maine, 1855; Pennsylvania, 1847.

_Writ of habeas corpus._ Ma.s.sachusetts, 1855; Michigan, 1855; Maine, 1857; Connecticut, 1838 and 1844.

_Jury trial._ Indiana, 1824; New York, 1840; Vermont, 1840, 1850, and 1858; Connecticut, 1838; Michigan, 1855; Ma.s.sachusetts, 1855.

_Use of jails forbidden._ Ma.s.sachusetts, 1843 and 1855; Vermont, 1843 and 1858; Pennsylvania, 1847; Rhode Island, 1848; Maine, 1855; Michigan, 1855; Ohio, 1857.

_Attorneys employed to defend fugitives._ New York, 1840; Vermont, 1840; Ma.s.sachusetts, 1855; Maine, 1857.

_False testimony punished._ Connecticut, 1838 and 1844; Michigan, 1855.

_Admission of national officers._ Connecticut, 1838 and 1844; Vermont, 1844; Maine, 1855; New Hampshire, 1857.]

[Footnote 276: See _ante_, -- 44.]

[Footnote 277: Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1843, p. 33.]

[Footnote 278: See _ante_, -- 57.]

[Footnote 279: Parker, Personal Liberty Laws, 27.]

[Footnote 280: See _ante_, -- 54.]

[Footnote 281: See _ante_, -- 55.]

[Footnote 282: Parker, Personal Liberty Laws, 27; Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1855, p. 924; Appendix D, No. 60, case of William Johnson.]

[Footnote 283: Laws of Ma.s.sachusetts, 1858, p. 151.]

[Footnote 284: Acts and Resolves of Maine, 1855, p. 207.]