The fees paid to commissioners were, as indicated in the remarks just quoted, by way of remuneration for services rendered in inquiries relative to the rights of ownership of negroes alleged to have escaped from the South. These inquiries, together with similar inquiries that arose under the act of 1793, constitute a group by themselves. Another group is made up of the cases growing out of the prosecution under the two acts of persons charged with harboring fugitive slaves, or aiding in their rescue. The secrecy observed by abolitionists in giving assistance to escaping bondmen shows that the evils threatening, if a discovery occurred, were constantly kept in mind. After the passage of the second act, public denunciation of the measure was indulged in freely, and open resistance to its provisions, whether these should be considered constitutional or not, was recommended in some quarters. Such remonstrances seem to have early disturbed the judicial repose of the courts, for, six months after the new Fugitive Slave Bill had become a law, Justice Nelson found occasion in the course of a charge to the grand jury of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York to deliver a speech on sectional issues in which he gave an exposition of the new law, "so that those, if any there be, who have made up their minds to disobey it, may be fully apprised of the consequences."[803] The severer penalties of the law of 1850 had no deterrent effect upon those who were determined to resist its enforcement. The fervor displayed in harboring runaways increased rather than diminished throughout the free states, and the spirit of resistance thus fostered broke out in daring and sometimes successful attempts at rescue. Through the activity of slave-owners in seeking the recovery of their lost property, and the support afforded them by the government in the strict enforcement of the new law, a number of offenders were brought to trial and subjected to punishments inflicted under its provisions. [803] 1 _Blatchford's Circuit Court Reports_, 636. Among the prosecutions arising under the two congressional acts the following cases are offered as typical. The number has been limited by choosing in general from among such as came before supreme courts of the states, or before circuit and district courts of the United States.