LAWS. In the colo nies and under the Confederation, fugitive slaves could be reclaimed only through inter colonial or interstate comity, and in framing the Constitution, one of the chief inducements for the South to join was a fugitive-slave clause. The mandate to deliver them up, how ever, was only to the States, which could not be punished for refusing to comply; and as the free States recognized no obligation of comity on this point, the general government passed the first fugitive-slave law, signed by Washing ton, 12 Feb. 1793. The oral testimony of the alleged owner was all the evidence required, and on this any magistrate, even a town justice, was ordered to surrender the alleged fugitive; $500 fine was imposed for rescue, concealment or obstruction of arrest. This made kidnap ping free blacks a pastime, and it was exten sively carried on in the Border States; motions to amend the law and require more evidence were voted down. On the other hand, the Border States complained of increasing escapes, and Congress promptly passed an amendment (30 Jan. 1818), enabling a claimant to make his proof before a judge of his own State and abolishing the habeas corpus in such cases. The Northern magistrates, however, revolted against the obligation; Pennsylvania passed a law contravening the national act and provid ing its own methods of reclamation, and made incumbent ncumbent on her own magistrates; a Maryland slave-seeker thereupon carried off an alleged slave by force, and on his indictment the Supreme Court decided (Prigg v. Pennsyl vania) that the execution of Federal laws could not be imposed on State officials. Taney dis sented; and on this doubt the Northern States began to pass "personal-liberty to prevent their officials being so employed or their build ings used as places of detention. With the spread of anti-slavery sentiment there also sprang up a method of assisting runaway slaves by sending them under cover of night from one sympathizer to another. This was called
"the underground railway?" The South be came roused to demand an effective fugitive slave law as the price of remaining in the Union; and that of 1850 (see COMPROMISE or 1850), the death-knell of the Northern-South ern Whig party, was passed, placing the whole course of reclamation in Federal hands. The entire machinery of the United States, from courts to army, was made part of a grand sys tem for this one purpose, and new officials were appointed for it; marshals were liable to $1,000 fine, plus the value of the slave, if he es caped or even was forcibly rescued, and by standers were held guilty of treason for refus ing to assist; the owner's oath was full evi dence, that of the alleged fugitive was not to be received, and the habeas corpus was ren dered null• obstruction, rescue or concealment i was punisliable by six months' imprisonment and $2,000 damages and fine; if the claimant "apprehended° a rescue, the marshal was to take the fugitive to the claimant's State himself be fore surrendering him; lastly, an affidavit and general description made in the claimant's own State was to be valid for a reclamation in any other. This atrocious act was met by more stringent personal-liberty laws, which made it hard for the alleged owner or his United States agents to find any State soil to stand on in executing the writs or holding the fugitive; and in 1859 Wisconsin openly threatened to secede if the mandates were executed on her soil. Its political result was an undreamed-of boomer ang, each seizure rousing a storm of indigna tion, often inflamed still more by the incidents — as riot and bloodshed, the murder of her child by a mother to save it from slavery (see GARNER CASE), the prosecution for treason of two Quakers who refused to join the hunt (see