Enforcing the Fugitive Slave Acts in the South: Federalism, Irony, and the Conflict of Jurisdictions, 1787–1861

Abstract

Enforcing the Fugitive Slave Acts in the South:Federalism, Irony, and the Conflict of Jurisdictions, 1787–1861 Alice L. Baumgartner (bio) In 1853, a runaway slave from Maryland named George Smith was caught in Pennsylvania.1 Under the terms of the new Fugitive Slave Act that Congress had passed three years earlier, Smith was not entitled to a jury trial. Instead, the act authorized federal magistrates, "upon satisfactory proof being made," to grant certificates that empowered slaveholders to "pursue and reclaim" any "person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States" who "shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States." Fugitive slaves could not testify in their own defense or dispute their detention in court—the basic right of habeas corpus. The commissioners' decisions could not be appealed.2 In accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, George Smith's captors hauled him before a federal magistrate in Philadelphia. But before the magistrate could sign the certificate for Smith's removal, a writ of habeas corpus arrived from the Philadelphia County Court of Quarter Sessions. George Smith had been earlier indicted for assault and battery. The writ ordered the U.S. marshal to deliver the fugitive slave to the county sheriff, who would bring him to the state courthouse. The federal [End Page 475] magistrate had to decide whether to return Smith to his captors or to the Court of Quarter Sessions. More broadly, the order raised the question: did Pennsylvania criminal law take precedence over the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850? The magistrate had good reason to uphold the Fugitive Slave Act and return Smith to his Maryland captors. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, in what is commonly known as the supremacy clause, stated that federal laws should take precedence over state laws. In addition, the United States Supreme Court had denied in 1842 the constitutionality of "any state law or regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the rights of the owner to the immediate command of his service or labor." The federal magistrate returned George Smith to his owner, in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.3 George Smith's fate—and that of other runaways north of the Mason-Dixon Line—is well known to scholars of slavery and the antebellum United States.4 But scholars have largely ignored how the law worked in the South—a significant oversight given that the vast majority of fugitive slaves never crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.5 This omission is based on the reasonable assumption that southern whites were so [End Page 476] committed to the institution of slavery that they returned runaways to their owners as a matter of course. But like the nonslaveholding states, slaveholding states did pass laws that sometimes conflicted with slaveholders' constitutional right to recover their fugitive slaves.6 One such law was at issue in another fugitive slave case, which resembled George Smith's in every particular except where the runaway was caught. In 1852, a fugitive slave named Solomon Smith was captured in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. But before he could be returned to his owner, he was charged with "firing at and wounding, with intent to kill, Mr. Wm. Hungerford," while Hungerford was attempting to capture Smith and a number of other "runaway rascals who [had] for months infested" the parish. This case exposed what historian Ariela J. Gross calls the "double character" of slavery: on the one hand, enslaved people were persons, capable of committing crimes and standing trial for them; on the other, they were property, destined to be returned to their owners. The question before the court was whether Solomon Smith should be returned, as property, to his owner or tried, as a person, for his crimes. Although Solomon Smith committed a similar crime as George Smith (no relation), the court in Louisiana reached the opposite decision from the magistrate in Pennsylvania. In Louisiana, the right of a slaveholder to recover his property appeared not to take precedence over state criminal law. Solomon Smith was tried and sentenced to be hanged.7 Criminal statutes were not the only state...