The Supreme Court and Fugitive Slave Law

The Supreme Court and Fugitive Slave Law.

 

We noticed the other day that the Supreme Court of the United States had made an important decision, sustaining the law of Illinois, which prohibits, under penalty, any citizen of that State harboring or secreting fugitive slaves. We at the same time copied the remarks of the New York Times, which press assumed that either the Supreme Court must by its decision declare void all State laws on the subject on fugitive slaves, or, by conceding to the States the right to legislate on the subject, must take away the foundation of the Fugitive Slave Law itself. We never for a moment supposed that the Court would adopt either of these alternatives, or find any difficulty in steering between them; but as their positions and reasons were not known, we could assume nothing on either side.  

 

The National Intelligencer of last Thursday brings us the opinion of the Court at length, which we regard as of so much interest that we copy it entire. Justice MCLEAN alone appears to have discounted, and the decision gains additional strength from the unanimity of the Court. We commend this decision to the attention of our readers. On a variety of points it seems to us to give definite authority to principles of the highest importance in the intercourse of the States of the Union. 

 

The police power of the States, to the extent of securing themselves from the intrusion of any class of persons likely to become a nuisance, or a danger, is fully sustained in this decision; and in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law, while the Court decides that the law of Illinois is legally distinct from the United States law, it guards itself carefully from the inference that it would treat as null and void State laws that were enacted for the purpose of aiding and facilitating the execution of United States law. The decision condemns, in all its length and breadth, and in language most unequivocal, all State legislation impeding and obstructing the assertion by the owner of his right to his slave. 

 

There is another aspect in which this decision is of great interest, and that is in defining the force of the decision of the same court in the case of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That decision has been generally interpreted as affirming the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States in the whole matter of fugitive slaves, and has formed the excuse of all the Northern States for enactments refusing the use of their jails for the detention of fugitives, and prohibiting all State officers from assisting in their capture.

 

The Supreme Court now very clearly limits that decision to such laws as obstruct the enforcement of the United States law, and impede the master in the recovery of his property. Mr. CALHOUN, Mr. CLAY, and nearly all the great statesmen of the country, always maintained that the States could constitutionally aid in carrying out the fugitive law, and that they were only restrained from thwarting and delaying its execution. The decision before us, by strong implication, sustains the same positions. It goes far in settling the law on all disputed points, and settling it in favor of the rights of the slaveholder.