This new measure remedied certain defects in the first statute, and was therefore more satisfactory to the slave-owners. As soon as it began to be executed, however, its provisions were found to be so severe that the trials and rescues it occasioned served only to educate the people to the evils of slavery by bringing its effects close to them. Thus, far from compelling the North to acquiesce in the system, it greatly increased the number of Abolitionists. The arraying of the North and South against each other in the Civil War intensified public sentiment upon the question, and led more and more to a loose execution of the law. It was found impracticable to return slaves to disloyal masters, and a law to prevent any such return was the next step toward the doing away of the whole system. Next came the question of the duty and power of the general government, within its exclusive jurisdiction: in 1862 all responsibility was disavowed. By this time the force of the law extended only to the loyal slave States, and the force of public opinion in 1864 withdrew the last statutory safeguard of slavery under the Constitution. A change in the text of the Constitution finally took away the force of the clause on which the return of fugitives was based. We can see, at this distance, how clearly slavery was doomed to destruction, from the time the two sections first made it an issue in 1820; but there was no relation arising out of slavery except the territorial question which did so much as the fugitive slave controversy to hasten the downfall of the system. The contrast between the free principles of democratic government and human bondage was forced upon the attention of the North by the pursuit of fugitives in their midst. Yet without national machinery for the recapture of runaways the institution could not have long been maintained. There is no evidence that the North was profoundly stirred by the horrors of slavery before 1850; it was only when the North was called upon, in the Territories, and through the Fugitive Slave Law, to give positive aid to the system that the antislavery movement grew strong. Fugitive slaves and fugitive slave laws helped to destroy slavery. [Footnote 302: Ableman v. Booth, 3 Wis., 1.] [Footnote 303: Globe, 1860-61, p. 356, App. 197.] [Footnote 304: Globe, 1860-61, (Baker) 228, (Burnham) 970.] [Footnote 305: Senate Journal, 36 Cong. 2 Sess., p. 18. Appendix C, No. 1.] [Footnote 306: House Journal, 36 Cong. 2 Sess., p. 60; Congr. Globe, 36 Cong. 2 Sess., 77. Appendix C, Nos. 2-12. For a list of proposed constitutional amendments bearing on fugitive slaves, I am indebted to Mr. H. V. Ames, of the Harvard Graduate School, who has kindly furnished me transcripts from his material for a forthcoming monograph on proposed amendments to the Constitution.] [Footnote 307: Cong. Globe, 3 Cong. 2 Sess., 114. Appendix C, Nos. 2-12.]