On August 15th, the Senate passed the bill from the committee on Territories for the Territorial organization of New Mexico, without any provision as to slavery. The bill for the organization of Utah had passed, it will be remembered, on August 1st, as the remnant of the compromise plan. The Senate then took up the Fugitive Slave Bill reported in March from the Judiciary committee. Inasmuch as the United States Supreme Court had given its opinion, in the case of Prigg versus Pennsylvania, that Commonwealth officers were not required by the Constitution of the United States to render any assistance in the rendition of fugitive slaves, the Judiciary {364} committee had so constructed its bill as to make use of the machinery of the central Government alone in the execution of the proposed law. The bill was a somewhat more stringent measure than that proposed by Mr. Clay's committee. It did away with the right of a fugitive claiming to be a freeman to a trial by jury of the question of his freedom in a competent court of the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which he was said to have escaped. It made it the duty of the marshals and deputy marshals of the United States courts to obey and execute all of the warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of the Act. It imposed a penalty of fine and imprisonment upon any person knowingly hindering the arrest of a fugitive, or attempting to rescue one from custody, or harboring one, or aiding one to escape. And it made the fee of the commissioner $10 in case he should issue the certificate of arrest to the claimant of the fugitive, and only $5 in case he should not. Otherwise it was substantially the same as the bill proposed by the Clay committee. The Senate passed this bill, on August 26th. At last, on September 16th, the Senate passed the bill recommended by Mr. Clay's committee, for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. One after another, all these bills passed the House of Representatives, against great opposition, but with no material alteration, except the connection of the bill for the organization of Territorial government in New Mexico with that for the adjustment of the Texan boundary, in which change the Senate acquiesced, and were all signed by the President; and before the first session of the Thirty-first Congress expired, on September 30th, 1850, the great work of pacification, as it was hoped and believed to be, had been accomplished. {365} CHAPTER XVIII. THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF 1852