Marion Gleason McDougall

“ Fugitives in loyal slave States.—From the beginning of the war one of the most embarrassing questions which had come before Congress was, How shall the slaves of loyal owners be treated? The necessity of holding the Border States firm for the Union disposed many to support only the most conciliatory measures; but these States were a part of the theatre of war. Northern armies now occupied parts of the Confederacy as well, and among the great numbers of blacks who flocked to the Union camp it was impossible to separate the slaves of the loyal from the disloyal. ”

“ Hubbard denied that the Constitution provided for the enactment of a law by Congress, and in any case, the treason of slavery had already absolved the people from any such obligation. It surely must be competent for this Congress to repeal any act which a previous Congress had enacted. For yet another reason the law should be repealed. Negro soldiers must be enlisted: "You cannot draft black men into the field, while your marshals are chasing women and children in the woods of Ohio with a view to render them back into bondage. ”

“ Reasons for escape.—First, why did the slave seek to escape? However unlike the attending circumstances, we find upon investigation that the negro's desire to run away may be traced to one of but three or four motives. Among the more intelligent slaves, who could comprehend the nature and injustice of their position, it often rose solely from the upspringing in their hearts of that love of freedom natural to all men. ”

“ In the South, money was usually the motive, and for its sake the managers of the Railroad could usually get some one to aid a slave in escaping and crossing the line. In the North it was an unselfish, and sometimes dangerous, work of charity.
Fugitives arrived at the first station, ignorant, half-clothed, and hungry. There they were fed, and, in order to elude the advertisements sent through the States, disguises were provided. For women, the large veiled bonnet and plain attire of the Quakeress proved one of the best costumes. ”

“ All efforts to amend the law were unsuccessful until the great compromise of 1850 gave opportunity to pass a second act.
This new measure remedied certain defects in the first statute, and was therefore more satisfactory to the slave-owners. As soon as it began to be executed, however, its provisions were found to be so severe that the trials and rescues it occasioned served only to educate the people to the evils of slavery by bringing its effects close to them. Thus, far from compelling the North to acquiesce in the system, it greatly increased the number of Abolitionists. ”

“ In England, he said, slavery could exist only by positive law; and in default of such law there was no legal machinery for depriving a man of his liberty on the ground that he was a slave. The importance of the case for the colonies lay not in the assertion of the principle that slavery depended on positive law, for the American statute-books were full of positive law on slavery; the precedent thus established determined the future course of England against the delivery of fugitives, whether from her colonies or from other countries.43
§ 13. ”

“ It should be repealed for the sake of our cause in foreign lands.380 "Since the outbreak of the Rebellion this statute has been constantly adduced by our enemies abroad as showing that we are little better than Jefferson Davis and his slave-monger crew; for slavery never shows itself worse than in the slave-hunter. It is a burden for our cause which it ought not to be obliged to bear."
To retain the law of 1793, framed by the founders of the Republic, and repeal the act of 1850 with its manifest injustice, was suggested as a desirable compromise. ”

“ International relations.—The proximity of the French, Spanish, and Dutch settlements led to escapes from the colonies of one power into those of another. All were slaveholding communities, and there was no disposition to shield a slave because his lot was a hard one; but the distrust and enmity between neighboring colonies owing allegiance to different sovereigns caused such escapes to lead to petty quarrels. There was no system of extradition treaties; in fact, there was as yet little international law. Fugitives were demanded as an act of comity, and sometimes their delivery was refused. ”

“ To understand the attitude of the North toward fugitives, it is necessary to examine some of the different methods used by the fugitives in their flight. Perhaps a better point of view than that of the outside observer will be gained by placing ourselves in the position of the slave, and examining his motives for flight, the difficulties which he encountered at home, the manner in which he overcame them, and, finally, the various paths of escape then open to him, and the agencies which befriended him and forwarded him on his way. ”

“ In 1714 we find that several negro slaves had been carried over ferries, and thus escaped out of Rhode Island. The Assembly therefore enacted that "no ferryman or boatman whatsoever, within this colony, shall carry or bring any slave as aforesaid over their ferries, without a certificate under the hands of their masters or mistresses, or some person in authority, upon the penalty of paying all costs and damages their said masters or mistresses shall sustain thereby: and to pay a fine of twenty shillings for the use of the colony for each offence, as aforesaid." ”

“ If the most ordinary controversy involving a contested claim of twenty dollars must be decided by jury, surely a controversy which involves the right of a man to his liberty should have a similar trial.... It will not do for a man to go into a State where every legal presumption is in favor of freedom, and seize a person whom he claims as a fugitive slave, and say, 'This man is my slave, and by my authority under the Constitution of the United States I carry him off, and whoever interferes does so at his peril.' He is asked, 'Where is your warrant?' and he produces none ”

“ Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts.—By the successive acts of Congress and the President, the legal effect of the Fugitive Slave Laws was now confined practically to the limited area of the Border States. No officer, civil or military, could return a fugitive into the Confederate lines. Slavery was forbidden in the District of Columbia, and there could be no escapes thence; and Congress forbade the use of the jails of the District for the confinement of fugitives from slaveholding regions. In the free States the rendition of slaves, though still legally required, had long since ceased. ”

“ Opportunities for escape occurred everywhere and at all times. Since war had brought the Northern people down into their own land, the slave no longer needed to travel hundreds of miles to find friends; the Northern camps were perhaps but a few miles from his own plantation. In this way negroes began to gather around the Federal camps in such numbers that the question of disposing of them became serious. If the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 were considered as still binding, their apprehension and return were necessary; but many of the masters were in arms against the government ”

“ It allowed the owner of the slave, his agent or attorney, to seize the fugitive and take him before any judge of a United States Circuit or District Court, or any local magistrate.78 The only requirement for the conviction of the slave was the testimony of his master, or the affidavit of some magistrate in the State from which he came, certifying that such a person had escaped. Hindering arrest or harboring a slave was punishable by a fine of five hundred dollars. The law thus established a system allowing the greatest harshness to the slave and every favor to the master. ”

“ These acts and agreements recognized not only the negro, as at a later period, but also the white and the Indian slave. There existed in some of the colonies of this time a peculiar class of white people, who received no wages, and were bound to their masters.1 Usually these redemptioners were laborers or handicraftsmen, but sometimes they were persons of education who had committed a crime, and were sold according to law for a term of years, or for life. One of the class is curiously connected with the education of no less a person than George Washington. ”

“ After landing, the slave succeeded in getting to Canada. The Governor of Georgia charged the captain with slave-stealing, and demanded his return as a fugitive from justice. The Governor of Maine would not comply with the request, because, as he said, the laws of that State recognized slaves not as property, but as persons. The indignant legislature of Georgia adopted resolutions calling upon Congress so to amend the laws that the Governor of Maine should be compelled to give up slave stealers as fugitives from justice. ”

“ Solomon Northup case.—Sometimes, if they feared to enter their case in court, slave hunters could find opportunity, by watching a negro for a while, to carry out their plans through some small deception. One of the most striking of these cases is that of Solomon Northup, who has written an account of his experiences as freeman and as slave. He was born in 1808 in New York State. His father had been made a free man by the provisions of his master's will. ”

“ In providing a government for the new Territory, it was enacted, July 13, 1787, that "any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."50 The fugitive clause seems to have provoked no discussion, but to have been accepted as a reasonable condition of the limitation of slavery. ”

“ The wild woods, the Indian settlements, or the next colony, peopled by a foreign race, and perhaps as yet without firmly established government, offered to the slave a refuge and possibly protection. Escape, therefore, as a peculiar danger, demanded peculiar remedies. Though it is the purpose of this monograph not so much to study the detail of legislation or escape in the colonies as to deal with the period from 1789 to 1865, a slight sketch of the intercolonial laws and provisions which preceded and in part suggested later legislation will first be necessary. ”

“ Whereas it is the duty of the Congress of the United States to enact all laws necessary to enforce such provisions of the Constitution as were intended to protect the citizens of the several States in their rights of property, and past experience has proved that laws should be passed by Congress to enforce the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which requires that persons held to labor in one State, escaping into another, shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such labor may be due ”

“ Methods of escape.—The great increase in the number of fugitives after 1850 was in part due to the uneasiness felt by Northern people under a law which made them co-workers with the South in a system of slave hunting, and in part to the greater ease of communication now afforded between the two sections. The knowledge that there was in the North a body of "abolitionists" eager to aid them from bondage to freedom was also spreading more widely each day among the slaves. ”

“ Dutch regulations in New Netherlands.—The early New Netherlands regulations furnish many interesting provisions concerning fugitive servants. Apparently the servile class was numerous, and hard to govern. In the words of the ordinance of 1640, "many servants daily run away from their masters, whereby the latter are put to great inconvenience and expense; the corn and tobacco rot in the field, and the whole harvest is at a standstill, which tends to the serious injury of this country, to their masters' ruin, and to bring the magistracy into contempt." ”

“ Resolved, That when a ship belonging to the citizens of any State of this Union leaves the waters and territory of such State, and enters upon the high seas, the persons on board cease to be subject to the slave laws of such State, and thenceforth are governed in their relations to each other by, and are amenable only to, the laws of the United States. ”

“ Frederick Douglass has given us two books, one written before slavery was abolished, and a fuller account afterward, when it was no longer imprudent to reveal the whole story of his escape. Many of these lives were published by antislavery people, who wished by such means to rouse the North. Such are the stories of Box Brown, Peter Still, Archy Moore, Solomon Northrup, Lunsford Lane, and others, most of which have been quoted above. ”

“ But the action of the States of Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, in taking steps toward immediate or gradual emancipation, from 1777 to 1784, brought up a new question,—the status of fugitives in free regions. Before the change of conditions in the States was completely understood, the same question had arisen in the Western territories. ”

“ Jefferson, in 1784, proposed to draw a north and south line through the mouth of the Kanawha, west of which there should be no slavery after 1800.48 The next year a Northern man proposed a similar limitation in the territory north of the Ohio, and added a clause for the return of fugitive slaves to the original slave States.49 Neither of these two propositions was carried, but the principles both of exclusion of slavery and of the return of fugitives appear in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the first legislation by Congress looking toward the surrender of fugitives by any Territory or State. ”