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> CB: Interesting. So you are saying that the Fugitive Slave statute, which was not passed until about 1840 ?? was actually enforcement legislation of a clause already in the Constituton, if I understand you. Sort of a latent Constitutional clause, that needed a statute....
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Right. Article 4 Section 2 Clause 3 went into the Constitution at the Convention without opposition. And an act was passed by the USCongress in 1793 (the first Fugitive Slave Law) to spell out the details of enforcement. Then non-slave states passed laws to further regulate the subject. This was the question in _Prigg v. Pennsylvania_ 16 Pet. 539, that Nathan cited to in his nice little polemic. Because of the explicit language of Art 4 Sect 2 the entire court in Prigg agreed that because the state law conflicted with the federal law, and since the power in this area was exclusive in Congress, the state law was unconstitutional.
But the court split (north v. south!) over whether a state could legislate consistently with the federal legislation. The majority (north, with the southern Wayne) held that since the subject was laid out in Art 4 Sect 2, even *consistent* state "Fugitive Slave" legislation was unconstitutional (like the good Warren court holding in _Nelson v. Pennsylvania_ that even consistent state sedition laws were unconstitutional). So some non-slave states passed laws prohibiting state officers from assisting any enforcement of the federal Fugitive Slave Law. This made the 1793 statute (which presumed assistance from state courts was available) in practice useless. This in turn necessitated the heavy duty 1850 Fugitive Slave Law - part of the 1850 Compromise - which gave slavemasters summary procedures in Federal Courts. But this in turn violated other non-slave state laws that, for example, guaranteed access to juries for determination of dispositive questions of fact - like whether the individual in question was in fact a fugitive slave.
As for why the slavemasters had been all for federal power in the Constitution, here's Charles Beard in _An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States_:
"The Southern planter was also as much concerned in maintaining order against slave revolts as the creditor in Massachusetts was concerned in putting down Shays' 'desperate debtors.' And the possibilities of such servile insurrections were by no means remote. Every slave owner must have felt more secure in 1789 when he knew the governor of his state could call in the strong arm of the federal administration in case a domestic disturbance got beyond the local police and militia."
>From the beginning the USConstitution was a mutual assistance pact of
rich northern creditors and southern slavemasters against the working
poor and the slaves. The slavemasters found "States Rights" religion
only when they came to think that the northern rulers weren't going to
keep up their end of the bargain.
john mage