The Statute
It was officially called "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters." It is commonly referred to as 1793 Fugitive Slave Act and was written as a way to ensure that slaveowners would be able to recover their slaves in any US state (Sections 3 & 4), as well as allow States to apprehend escaped fugitive slaves (Sections 1 & 2), which were not the same. Although the U.S. Constitution in Article 4 provided for the return of runaway slaves, specific laws were required to implement this provision. Congress passed legislation to enforce this part of the Constitution.
The law established the legal mechanism by which escaped slaves could be seized in any state, brought before a magistrate and returned to their masters; it gave states the right to demand a slave be returned. The law made it a crime to assist a fugitive or a slave in escaping, with prison and a fine for helping a fugitive, but only a fine for helping a slave. The Act made every escaped slave a fugitive for life (unless manumitted by the owner), who could be recaptured at any time anywhere within the territory of the United States. Any children born to fugitive slave women were considered slaves because of their mother's status; they could also be captured as property of the master. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in February 1793; it was signed into law by the first US president, George Washington.
Read more about this topic: Fugitive Slave Act Of 1793
Famous quotes containing the word statute:
“Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute or a subscription of stock; for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry; for a new house or a larger business; for a political party, or the division of an estate;Mwill you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That’s what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is—One Who Killed Our Lord.... And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)