| Petitions for the repeal of the law. The Shadrach case. |
Petitions began now to flow into Congress for the repeal of the law. Generally they were laid upon the table, but more than once a fierce debate was opened, which threatened to precipitate another contest over the right of petition. It was about the time that the Senate was considering what to do with one of these petitions, offered by Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, in February of 1851, that the news of the failure of the law in the Shadrach case reached Washington. Shadrach, claimed slave of John DeBree, of Norfolk, Va., was rescued by a negro mob, while held in custody in the court-house in Boston under a warrant from the United States Commissioner, Mr. George T. Curtis, and was spirited away to Canada. The mob seems to have had no difficulty in accomplishing its purpose.
| The investigation of the case by Congress. |
The Senate, on motion of Mr. Clay, passed a resolution, on February 18th, 1851, calling upon the President for information concerning the failure of the law in the Shadrach case, and the means he had adopted to meet the occurrence, and asking the President if, in his opinion, further means should be placed at his disposal by Congress for enabling him to execute the laws with more success.
On the 21st, the reply of the President was received. It contained an account of the occurrence in Boston; a summary of the laws of the United States and of Massachusetts on the subject of confining United States prisoners in the jails of the Commonwealth, which demonstrated the fact that Massachusetts had forbidden the use of her jails and the aid of her officials in fugitive slave cases; a declaration of opinion that the President was authorized by the Constitution to use the regular army and navy, when, in his judgment, it was necessary for the suppression of violence and the execution of the laws, and without giving warning of his intention by any proclamation; and a suggestion to Congress to confirm this opinion by a positive act, which would include the militia as well as the regular army and navy, and would authorize a marshal or commissioner of the United States to summon an organized militia force as a part of the posse comitatus.
| The question of increasing the power of the President to execute the law. |
Mr. Clay immediately moved the reference of the communication to the Judiciary committee. This motion called out a three days debate in the Senate, during which it became manifest that the extremists, from both the North and the South, had little faith in the power of the Government to execute the law, and were unfavorable to the policy of using the military power in its execution. Mr. Chase and Mr. Hale, on the one side, and Mr. Butler, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Rhett, on the other, contended that the provision of the Constitution guaranteeing the rendition of fugitive slaves did not require a Congressional act, even if it authorized one. Mr. Davis said that he would see Massachusetts quit the Union rather than execute the law by military power within her limits. It was evident that these men were not anxious to have the law executed at all. Their motives for the same must have been very different, but it would hardly be an unfair speculation if one should imagine that the slaveholders were not averse to having the failure of the law for another count in their indictment against the Union.