The moderate men, however, of both the North and the South, claimed that the law was constitutional, that it was politic and necessary, that it had been successfully executed in a number of cases, that it could be executed in practically all cases, that it must be, even though it should require the whole military power of the country, and that the great mass of the people would sustain it as carrying out the pledges of the Constitution.
Mr. Clay's motion was finally unanimously voted, and, on March 3rd, two reports were presented to the Senate, one signed by all the members of the Judiciary committee except Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, and the other by Mr. Butler alone. The former expressed the opinion that the President already possessed full and adequate powers to execute the laws, and that no further legislation upon the subject was necessary. It also held that the organized military could be summoned and used by a civil officer as a part of the posse comitatus. Mr. Butler, while agreeing with the other members in recommending no further legislation for the execution of the law, denied that the President had the power from the Constitution to use the regular army and navy at his own discretion in suppressing insurrections and executing the laws, and held that the President could employ these forces for such purposes in the same manner only that he could employ the militia, that is, under the Congressional Acts of 1795 and 1807, which required, among other things, that a proclamation should precede the actual employment of military power in such cases.
Congress closed its session, on the next day, without having changed or modified the law, and without having given the President any additional means for its execution. The thoughts of men were turned again upon the incidents of its execution.
| The Sims case. |
During the spring of 1851, several cases of slave apprehension occurred, the most exciting of which was that of Thomas Sims, claimed in Boston by Mr. James Potter, of Georgia. He was arrested by the City Marshal on the charge of having committed a larceny, and put under guard in the Court House. Charles G. Loring, Robert Rantoul, Jr., and Samuel E. Sewall, lawyers of much ability and men of high social standing, offered their services in defence of the negro. After applying to several judges of the supreme court of the Commonwealth, without success, for a writ of habeas corpus, they finally obtained one from Judge Woodbury, and argued the case before him. The Judge finally refused to interfere with the possession of the negro by the United States Marshal. The United States Commissioner, Mr. George T. Curtis, then heard the case, and issued the certificate for the rendition of the fugitive to his master. In the early morning of the next day, the negro was conducted by three hundred armed policemen to the wharf and placed on board a vessel bound for Savannah. The vessel sailed safely out of port, and the Fugitive Slave Law was, at last, executed in Boston.
| Excitement in Boston over the rendition of Sims. |
During the trial, and for a week afterward, the city was in a fever of excitement. Meetings of the citizens were held in Tremont Temple and Washington Hall, and on the Common, at which the eloquence of Phillips, Channing, Edmund Quincy, and Horace Mann, and the violent words of Garrison and Parker, stirred the indignation of their hearers and lashed it into an almost rebellious fury. A very large part of the inhabitants felt that a stain had been put upon the city, which must be wiped out by any means necessary to accomplish it.
The summer months of 1851 now passed without any notable instances of resistance to the law, and conservative men, of both the North and the South, began to hope that the worst was over, and that the North would acquiesce without further opposition in the execution of the odious Act.