The Constitution was not self-executing, if it really contained, as we have seen, a clause requiring escaped slaves to be surrendered from one State to their masters in another.
The Governor of the State of Virginia refused the rendition of three kidnappers of a free negro, on the requisition of the Governor of Pennsylvania, from which State he had been kidnapped, on the sole ground that no law required the surrender of fugitive slaves from Virginia. The controversy thus arising was called to the attention of President Washington and by him to Congress, and it ended by the passage of the first fugitive-slave act. It was for a time tolerably satisfactory to the different sections of the country, though in itself the most flagrant attempt to violate state-rights, judged from the more modern secession, state-rights standpoint, ever attempted by Federal authority.
It required state magistrates, who owed their offices solely to state law, to sit in judgment in fugitive-slave cases, and to aid in returning to slavery negroes claimed as slaves by masters from foreign States. The act provided for the return of fugitive apprentices as well as fugitive slaves.
In time the Northern States became free, and the public conscience in them became so changed that the magistrates were deterred or unwilling to act in execution of the law. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania each passed a law making it penal for any of their officers to perform any duties or to take cognizance of any case under the fugitive-slave law. Other States, through their judiciary, pronounced it unconstitutional, even some of the Federal judges doubted its consonance with the Constitution, but, such as it was, it lasted until 1850. It did not provide for a jury trial. The scenes enacted in its execution shocked the moral sense of mankind, and even the slaveholder often shrank from attempting its execution.
But it was not until about the time of the excitement of the fugitive- slave law of 1850 that the highest excitement prevailed in the North over its enforcement, and of this we shall speak hereafter.
IX SLAVE TRADE: ABOLISHED BY LAW
In the English Parliament, in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, the first motion was made towards the abolition of the slave trade, long theretofore fostered by English kings and queens, but not until 1807 did the British moral sense rise high enough to pass, at Lord Granville's instance, the famous act for "the Abolition of the Slave Trade." As early as 1794 the United States prohibited their subjects from trading in slaves to foreign countries; and in 1807, they prohibited the importation of slaves into any of the States, to take effect at the beginning of 1808, the earliest time possible, as we have seen, under the Constitution. But it was not until 1820 that slave-traders were declared pirates, punishable as such.
The prohibition of the slave trade by law did not effectually end it, nor was the law declaring it piracy wholly effectual, though the latter did much, through the co-operation of other nations, to restrict it.
There were active movements in 1852 and 1858, in the South, to revive the African slave trade, and especially was there fierce opposition to the "piracy act." Jefferson Davis, at a convention in Mississippi, July, 1858, advocated the repeal of the latter act, but doubted the practicability then of abrogating the law prohibiting slave traffic.(30)
It is worthy of mention here that April 20th, eight days after Sumter was fired upon, Commander Alfred Taylor, commanding the United States naval ship Saratoga, in the port of Kabenda, Africa, captured the Nightingale of Boston, flying American colors, with a cargo of 961 recently captured, stolen, or purchased African negroes, destined to be carried to some American part and there sold into slavery. This human cargo was sent to the humane Rev. John Seys, at Monrovia, Liberia, to be provided for. One hundred and sixty died on a fourteen-days' sea-voyage, from ship-fever and confinement, though the utmost care was taken by Lieutenant Guthrie and the crew of the slaver for their comfort.(31)