=§ 81. Massachusetts acts.=--Let us now examine the purport of these acts in the various States. The general tenor and effect are best seen in Massachusetts, which may be selected as a typical State. In 1837, Massachusetts passed a law "to restore the trial by jury, on questions of personal freedom." This secured to the prisoner a writ of personal replevin, which was to be issued from and returnable to the Court of Common Pleas for the county in which the plaintiff was confined, and was to be issued fourteen days at least before the return day. If the prisoner were secreted, the court might send out a capias to take the body of the defendant. This act allowed an appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court. In 1842, the Latimer case[276] occurred. This so aroused public sentiment that a great petition, signed by sixty-five thousand people, was sent to the legislature, asking for a new personal liberty law. On the basis of the Prigg decision, a law was enacted which forbade State magistrates to issue certificates or take cognizance of the law of 1793, and withheld the use of State jails for the imprisonment of fugitives.[277] In 1851, in the Shadrach case,[278] there was opportunity for testing the value of this law. The fugitive was not indeed confined in any jail, but there was little difficulty in providing a place of detention, and the court-house was secured. In this year, acting upon a clause in the Governor's message, which treated of the new Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, a committee in the legislature made a report, accompanied by resolutions and a bill further to protect personal liberty; but no law was passed, and there the matter rested until 1855.[279]