On the 6th of April, 1785, a report was presented from this committee to Congress, providing for an amendment of the existing ordinance, so as to exclude slavery from the northwest territory after the year 1800, "the resolution to be an article of compact" between the thirteen original states and those created out of the territory. The amendment so reported also made provision for the return to their masters of fugitive slaves escaping into the territory from any of the thirteen original states.[[291]]
No action was taken upon this report, but at the time the Ordinance of 1787 was under consideration, July 13th, 1787, a provision was inserted prohibiting slavery in the northwest territory along with a fugitive slave clause, by the unanimous vote of all the states present.[[292]]
FUGITIVE SLAVES AND THE CONSTITUTION
The same year, the Constitutional Convention, in session at Philadelphia, inserted a like fugitive slave clause in the Federal Constitution.
On the 12th of February, 1793, Congress passed an act providing the method for carrying into effect the section of the constitution relating to fugitives from justice and fugitive slaves. Both subjects are treated and provided for in the same act. It passed both houses of Congress by practically unanimous votes—Washington approving the bill with his signature.
RETURN OF FUGITIVE SLAVES
By this statute, the authorities of the several states were charged with the duty of executing the law with reference to the return of fugitives from justice.
With respect, however, to fugitive slaves, the authority and burden of dealing with their return was placed upon officers of the Federal Government as well as upon certain state officials. Despite the somewhat cumbrous character of the law, the return of fugitives from justice and of fugitive slaves was assured, and little controversy arose until some forty years after its enactment. But with the rise of the Abolitionists at the North difficulties in executing the law began to appear—especially as to fugitive slaves.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
William Lloyd Garrison began the publication of The Liberator in 1831. The American Anti-Slavery Society was organized in 1833 and soon thereafter the Underground Railroad commenced its operations. Under the influence of these forces, not only was the execution of the law with reference to fugitive slaves in many of the Northern States greatly hindered but the slaves enticed or escaping from their masters became much more numerous. The irritating effects of these conditions upon Southern slaveholders were intensified by the suggestion that the law was fairly enforced as long as there were slaves in the so-called free states. In time, however, the Legislatures of many of the Northern States adopted state laws which were undoubtedly designed to defeat the execution of the Federal statute, and thus was added the sanction of states through their law-making bodies to the illegal attitude and acts of their citizens. This political action of these states not only aroused the indignation of slaveholders, but enlisted in their behalf the sympathies of their non-slaveholding fellow citizens. The attitude of the Abolitionists and the action of the Northern States above referred to were regarded by the people of Virginia as a violation of the constitutional rights of their state, as well as a wanton injury to the property interests of her slaveholding citizens. The Abolitionists, by every form of suggestion and appeal, incited and assisted slaves to desert their masters, while the Underground Railroad provided increasing facilities for accomplishing the result.