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(1780) Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition

By

On November 7, 2022

In Baker, Finkelman, Oakes

Citation

1780 Gradual Abolition Act, March 1, 1780, FULL TEXT via Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission

Excerpt

Be it enacted and it is hereby enacted by the Representatives of the Freemen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met and by the Authority of the same, That all Persons, as well Negroes, and Mulattos, as others, who shall be born within this State, from and after the Passing of this Act, shall not be deemed and considered as Servants for Life or Slaves; and that all Servitude for Life or Slavery of Children in Consequence of the Slavery of their Mothers, in the Case of all Children born within this State from and after the passing of this Act as aforesaid, shall be, an hereby is, utterly taken away, extinguished and for ever abolished.

Pennsylvania’s 1780 Gradual Abolition Act (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission)

Provided always and be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That every Negroe and Mulatto Child born within this State after the passing of this Act as aforesaid, who would in Case this Act had not been made, have been born a Servant for Years or life or a Slave, shall be deemed to be and shall be, by Virtue of this Act the Servant of such person or his or her Assigns, who would in such Case have been entitled to the Service of such Child until such Child shall attain unto the Age of twenty eight Years, in the manner and on the Conditions whereon Servants bound by Indenture for four Years are or may be retained and holden; and shall be liable to like Correction and punishment, and intitled to like Relief in case he or she be evilly treated by his or her master or Mistress; and to like Freedom dues and other Privileges as Servants bound by Indenture for Four Years are or may be intitled unless the Person to whom the Service of any such Child Shall belong, shall abandon his or her Claim to the same, in which Case the Overseers of the Poor of the City Township or District, respectively where such Child shall be so abandoned, shall by Indenture bind out every Child so abandoned as an Apprentice for a Time not exceeding the Age herein before limited for the Service of such Children.

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(1783) Abolition in Massachusetts

By

On November 22, 2022

In Baker, Oakes

Citation

Legal Notes by Massachusetts Supreme Court justice William Cushing on the case of Quok Walker, [1783], FULL TEXT via Massachusetts Historical Society

Excerpt

Freeman portrait blue dress

Massachusetts freedom seeker Elizabeth Freeman (Massachusetts Historical Society)

As to ye. doctrine of Slavery & ye. right of Christians to holding Africans in perpetual servititude [servitude] , & selling & treating them as we do our horses & Cattle, that, (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the province Laws formerly, but no where is it expressly enacted or established. — It has been a usage — a usage which took its origin, from ye. practice of some of ye. European nations, & the regulations of british Govmt respecting the then Colonies, for ye. benefit of trade & Wealth. But whatever Sentiments have been formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by ye. Example of others, a different Idea has taken place with ye people of America more favorable to ye. natural rights of Mankind, & to that of and natural innate, desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (witht. regard to Colors, complexion or Shapes of noses features) has inspired all ye. human Race. And upon this Ground, our Constitution of Govmt, Sets out into by wch. ye people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, Sets out with declaring that all men are born free & equal — & yt. Every subject is intitled to Liberty, & to have it guarded by ye. Laws, as well as Life & property — & in short is totally repugnant to ye. Idea of being born Slaves. This being ye. Case I think ye. Idea of Slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct & Constitution & there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational Creature, unless it his Liberty is forfeited by Some Criminal Conduct or giv given up by personal Consent or Contract.

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(1787) Fugitive Slave Clause

By

On November 9, 2022

In Baker, Finkelman, Oakes, Pinsker

Citation

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, US Constitution, 1787, FULL TEXT via The Avalon Project, Yale Law School

Excerpt

Constitution front page image

US Constitution (National Archives)

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.US C

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(1787) Northwest Ordinance

By

On October 11, 2022

In Johnson, Oakes

Citation

Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787, FULL TEXT via National Archives

Excerpt

maps of Northwest Territory

Northwest Territory (Library of Congress)

Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.

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(1793) Fugitive Slave Act

By

On November 5, 2022

In Baker, Finkelman, Oakes, Pinsker

Citation

1793 Fugitive Slave Act, February 12, 1793, FULL TEXT via A Century of Lawmaking, Library of Congress

Excerpt

engraving of room, lit by fireplace, kidnapping scene

Abolitionist illustration criticizing the activities of slave catchers under the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act (Jesse Torrey, A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United States, 1817 )

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the executive authority of any State in the Union, or of either of the territories northwest or south of the river Ohio, shall demand any person as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any such state or territory to which such person shall have fled, and shall moreover produce the copy of an indictment found, or an affidavit made before a magistrate of any state or territory as aforesaid, charging the person so demanded, with having committed treason, felony or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the state or territory from whence the person so charged, fled, it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the state or territory to which such person shall have fled, to cause him or her to be arrested and secured, and notice of the arrest to be given to the executive authority making such demand, or to the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and to cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear: But if no such agent shall appear within six mouths from the time of the arrest, the prisoner may be discharged. And all costs or expenses incurred in the apprehending, securing, and transmitting such fugitive to the elate or territory making such demand, shall be paid by such state or territory.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given or declared: or shall harbor or conceal such person after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, shall, for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars. Which penalty may be recovered by and fur the benefit of such claimant, by action of debt, in any court proper to try the same; saving moreover to the person claiming such labor or service, his right of action for or on account of the said injuries or either of them.

Key Cases under the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act

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(1820) Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law

By

On November 9, 2022

In Baker, Oakes, Pinsker

Citation

Act to Prevent Kidnapping, March 27, 1820, FULL TEXT via Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, PA: C. Gleim, 1820), 104-106

Excerpt

cartoon men seizing freedom seeker

Abolitionist cartoon depicting the kidnapping of a free Black resident (Library Company of Philadelphia)

Sec. 1. BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre­sentatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That if any person or persons shall from and after the passing of this act, by force or violence take and. carry away, or shall by fraud or kidnapping false pretences seduce or cause to be seduced, or shall attempt so to take, carry away or seduce any negro or mulatto from any part or parts of this Commonwealth, to any other place or places whatsoever, out of this Commonwealth, with a design and intention of selling and disposing of, or of causing to be sold, or of keeping and detaining, or of causing to be kept and detained, such negro or mulatto as a slave or ser­vant for a year or years, every such person or persons, his or their aiders and abettors, shall on conviction thereof in any court of this Commonwealth having competent jurisdiction, be deemed guilty of a felony, and shall forfeit and pay at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, any sum not less than five hundred dollars, nor more than two thousand dollars, one half whereof shall be paid to the person or persons who shall prosecute for the same, and the other half to this Commonwealth, and moreover shall be sentenced to undergo a servitude for any term or time not less than seven years, nor exceeding twenty-one years, and shall be confined, kept to hard labor, fed and clothed in manner as is directed by the penal law of this Commonwealth for persons convicted of robbery.

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(1842) Prigg v. Pennsylvania

By

On November 12, 2022

In Finkelman, Oakes, Pinsker, Sinha

Citation

Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 1842, FULL TEXT via Justia

Excerpt

…The clause of the Constitution of the United States relating to fugitives from labor manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. Any state law or regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the rights of the owner to the immediate command of his service or labor operates pro tanto a discharge of the slave therefrom. The question can never be how much he is discharged from, but whether he is discharged from any by the natural or necessary operation of the state laws or state regulations. The question is not one of quantity or degree, but of withholding or controlling the incidents of a positive right.

The owner of a fugitive slave has the same right to seize and take him in a State to which he has escaped or fled that he had in the State from which he escaped, and it is well known that this right to seizure or recapture is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding States. The Court have not the slightest hesitation in holding that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of the slave is clothed with the authority in every State of the Union to seize and recapture his slave wherever he can do it without any breach of the peace or illegal violence. In this sense and to this extent, this clause in the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation, state or national….

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(1848) Pearl Escape

By

On November 12, 2022

In Crew, Harrold, Oakes, Pinsker, Sinha

Pearl mass escape rattles Washington, DC slaveholders on April 15, as 77 freedom seekers attempt to flee the nation’s capital by boat. Armed whites overtake the group, and slaveholders sell many of the freedom seekers south. Later, local authorities convict two white allies, Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres, on charges of slave stealing. Unable to pay their fines, Drayton and Sayres remain in jail until President Millard Fillmore pardons them in 1852.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1850) Cazenovia Convention

By

On November 12, 2022

In Oakes, Uncategorized

Abolitionists rally at the Cazenovia Convention in upstate New York on August 21 to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act. Over 2,000 abolitionists and 50 freedom seekers attend, as Frederick Douglass and other speakers vow to resist slave catchers with force.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1850) Fugitive Slave Act

By

On October 3, 2022

In Baumgartner, Blackett, Finkelman, Oakes, Pinsker, Sinha

Citation

1850 Fugitive Slave Act, September 18, 1850, FULL TEXT via The Avalon Project, Yale Law School

Excerpt

cartoon showing people fighting, caricatures

Political cartoon attacking the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law (Library of Congress)

SECTION 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

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