Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3), which was later superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, and to also give effect to the Extradition Clause (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 2).[1] The Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The subsequent Act, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters", created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished.
For other laws, see Fugitive slave laws in the United States.Long title
An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters.
Passage and later amendment[edit]
The Act was passed by the House of Representatives on February 4, 1793 by a vote of 48–7, with 14 abstaining.[2] The "Annals of Congress" state that the law was approved on February 12, 1793.[3]
The Act was written amidst a controversy about a free black man named John Davis who was kidnapped from Pennsylvania and brought to Virginia. However, the Act failed to resolve that controversy; the kidnappers from Virginia were never extradited to Pennsylvania, and John Davis remained a slave.[4]
The Act was later strengthened at the insistence of the slave states of the American South by the Compromise of 1850, which required state governments and the residents of free states to enforce the capture and return of fugitive slaves.[5] The enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 outraged Northern public opinion.