Fugitive slave laws were laws that provided for the return of enslaved Black people who escaped from one state to another. A clause in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided for the return of enslaved people who had escaped to the free Northwest Territory. The Constitution of the United States, which went into effect in 1788, also provided for the return of fugitives from slavery.
In 1793, the U.S. Congress passed a fugitive slave law. The law allowed owners to recover enslaved persons merely by presenting proof of ownership before a magistrate. An order was then issued for the arrest and return of the escapee. Enslaved people were forbidden a jury trial and the right to give evidence in their own behalf. Under this law, free Black people in the North were sometimes kidnapped and taken South and enslaved. For this reason, some Northern states gave orders not to help recover fugitives.
The Compromise of 1850 imposed heavy penalties on people who aided enslaved people’s escape or interfered with their recovery. Some Northern states passed personal liberty laws, which sometimes prohibited state and local officers from obeying national fugitive slave laws.
