Slavery and the ConstitutionBowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Religion
Slavery and the Constitution
Bowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Enslaved persons -- United States -- Social conditions; Slavery -- United States
"When a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in
either of the territories on the north-west or south of the river
Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the
said States or territory, the person to whom such labor or service
may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or
arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any
judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States,
residing or being within the State, or before any magistrate of a
county, city, or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest
shall be made; and, upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or
magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit, taken before and
certified by a magistrate of any such State or territory, that the
person so seized or arrested doth, under the laws of the State or
territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the
person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or
magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent
or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said
fugitive from labor to the State or territory from which he or she
fled."
SUPPRESSION OF SLAVE INSURRECTIONS. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 8; Art. 4, sec.
4.)
"An Act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of
the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," was approved
May 2, 1792 (Act Const. 1792, chap. 28). Section first provides that,
"_In case of an insurrection in any State_ against the government
thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on
application of the legislature of such State, or of the executive (when
the legislature cannot be convened), to call forth such number of the
militia of any other State or States as may be applied for, or as he may
judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection." Precisely the same
language is made use of in Stat. 1795, c. 101. By Act approved March 3,
1807 (Stat. 1807, c. 94), the President is authorized "in _all_ cases of
insurrection," "when it is lawful for him to call forth the militia for
the purpose of suppressing the same," "to employ for the same purpose
such part of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be
judged necessary."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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