Читать книгу The Historical Records of Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865) - Marion Gleason McDougall - Страница 17

§ 25. Kidnapping from 1793 to 1850: Prigg case.—Since slavery was now extinct in the more northern States, their population contained many free negroes. Upon them the eyes of the slave trader were often turned, as easy prey under the law of 1793, and many cases of kidnapping occurred. It was such instances, involving as they did the most manifest injustice and cruelty, that first aroused the sympathies of the people.¹⁴³ The border States like Pennsylvania were often the scene of these acts. The neighboring white families first began to try to protect the negroes settled near them, and a little later to give a helping hand to those escaping from slavery, and at last, in the underground railroad,¹⁴⁴ to complete a systematic organization for the assistance of fugitives. Cases of kidnapping are recorded as early as 1808.¹⁴⁵ In 1832 the carrying away of a black woman without process of law not only roused the people of Pennsylvania, but led to a decision which took away much of the force of the act of 1793.

A slave woman, Margaret Morgan, had fled from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Five years later, in 1837, Edward Prigg, an attorney, caused her to be arrested and sent back to her mistress without recourse either to the national or State act on the subject. In the act he disregarded a law of Pennsylvania, brought about in 1826 through the efforts of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, which forbade the carrying out of the State of any negro with the intention of enslaving him. Accordingly, Mr. Prigg was arrested and convicted in the county court. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania sustained the decision. Thence the case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. There the counsel for Mr. Prigg argued that the statute of Pennsylvania on which the indictment was founded was unconstitutional, since it conflicted with the law of 1793. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court, and upon this decision all future judgments were based. He announced that the law must be carried out through national authorities alone; the States or State magistrates could not be forced into action.¹⁴⁶ After this, many States, seeing the advantage thus given them, passed laws which forbade the officers to aid in a fugitive slave case, and also denied the use of their jails for imprisonment.¹⁴⁷ Plainly the Prigg case showed a growing indisposition on the part of the States to carry out the law, however severe its provisions might be; and this disposition to evade its obligations is still further evidenced by the cases given in the next chapter.

§ 26. Necessity of more stringent fugitive slave provisions.—The increasing number of rescues,¹⁴⁸ and the occurrence of several cases of resistance, proved conclusively the inadequacy of the law of 1793. After the Prigg decision the provisions made for its execution through national powers were entirely insufficient. Underlying all these acts, the South also could but perceive a sentiment the growth of which, unless checked in some way, would at last permanently injure, if not destroy, their peculiar institution.

§ 27. Action of Congress from 1847 to 1850.—From 1822 until 1848 apparently no effort was made to secure a new law. Then a petition received in 1847 from the Legislature of Kentucky, urging the importance of passing such laws as would enable the citizens of slaveholding States to recover their slaves when they escaped into non-slaveholding States,¹⁴⁹ gave rise to a bill from the Committee on the Judiciary.¹⁵⁰ The bill provided "for the more effectual execution of the third clause of the second section of the Fourth Article of the Constitution."¹⁵¹ It passed only to the second reading. In 1849, Mr. Meade proposed in the House to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to report a fugitive slave bill.¹⁵² No report apparently was ever made, but this was the last ineffectual proposition. In 1850, a new law was successfully carried in both Houses.

§ 28. Slavery in the District of Columbia.—During this period, from 1840 to 1850, the subject of slavery and fugitives in the District of Columbia began to occasion debate, which was never long silenced. It was notorious that almost under the windows of the Capitol negroes were confined in public jails on the ground that they were fugitives; and that a free negro so confined might be sold for his jail fees. Resolutions for an investigation of the condition of the jails were offered in 1848 by Mr. Giddings;¹⁵³ and Mr. Hall also introduced more sweeping propositions to repeal all laws of Congress and of Maryland which authorized or required courts, officers, or magistrates to issue process for arrest or commitment to the jail of the District of any fugitive slave.¹⁵⁴ Congress, however, was in a mood too conciliatory toward the South to consider these propositions; and no action was taken.