Ohio made but one provision on the subject, and that lasted but a year. Her jails were closed to suspected slaves in 1857,[294] but in 1858 this law was repealed.[295] Michigan passed such an act in 1855,[296] with the usual clauses on the use of jails and jury trial, and imposed a fine on false testimony against the defendant. In 1858 Wisconsin and Kansas also passed similar acts.[297] =§ 83. Effect of the personal liberty laws.=--Since the avowed purpose of these laws was to obstruct the execution of one of the United States statutes, national and State legislation were thus brought into direct conflict; but the Fugitive Slave Law was held constitutional by the Supreme Court, and any attempt to prevent its enforcement by positive means, however righteous from an ethical standpoint, must be considered an infraction of the Constitution, and of the common understanding between the States, on which the Union was founded.[298] The provisions denying the use of State institutions and officers, though distinctly unfriendly, were not unconstitutional. Many of the Abolitionists, however, held the national law to be unconstitutional, and at the same time morally so repugnant that it ought never to be executed.[299] The State laws were brought up by South Carolina, in her declaration of the causes of secession, as one of the chief grievances against the North; and President Buchanan, in his Message of 1860,[300] said they were "the most palpable violations of constitutional duty which had yet been committed." They must certainly be classed in principle with the Nullification Ordinance of 1832. Indeed, the legislature of Wisconsin, after the Supreme Court had overridden the decision of the State courts in the case of Ableman v. Booth that the national law was contrary to the national Constitution, passed some resolutions in which a "positive defiance is urged as the 'rightful remedy'" against such legislation.[301] [Footnote 256: Revised Laws of Indiana, 1824, p. 221.] [Footnote 257: Laws of Connecticut, 1838, p. 32.] [Footnote 258: Acts and Resolves of Vermont, 1840, p. 13.] [Footnote 259: Laws of New York, 1840, p. 174.] [Footnote 260: See _ante_, § 27.] [Footnote 261: Laws of Massachusetts, 1843, p. 33.] [Footnote 262: Acts and Resolves of Vermont, 1843, p. 11.] [Footnote 263: Laws of Pennsylvania, 1847, p. 206.] [Footnote 264: Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, 1848, p. 12.] [Footnote 265: Laws of Vermont, 1850, p. 9.] [Footnote 266: Public Acts of Connecticut, 1854, p. 80.] [Footnote 267: Laws of Rhode Island, 1854, p. 22.] [Footnote 268: Laws of Massachusetts, 1855, p. 924; 1858, p. 151.] [Footnote 269: Laws of Michigan, 1855, p. 415.] [Footnote 270: Laws of Maine, 1857, p. 38.] [Footnote 271: Lalor, III. 162.] [Footnote 272: Lalor, III. 162.] [Footnote 273: Laws of Ohio, 1857, p. 170; 1857, p. 10.] [Footnote 274: Lalor, III. 162.]