But, during the second session of the Second Congress, the highly important act was quietly passed, which from that time till 1850 regulated the return of fugitives from justice and labor. The Governor of Virginia, acting under the advice of counsel, had refused to deliver up a fugitive criminal to the Executive of Pennsylvania, conceiving that the provision in the Constitution did not sufficiently define the manner in which this duty was to be complied with. The matter had been submitted to President Washington, who made it the subject of a special message to the Senate, whereupon an Act providing for the practical enforcement of both Constitutional provisions, was shortly after proposed and passed. With regard to fugitives from labor, it enacted that the owner, or his agent, might seize such fugitive, take him before a United States Judge, or any magistrate of the city, town, or county, where the arrest was made, prove to his satisfaction, by evidence written or oral, that the claim was a just one, and, having obtained his certificate to that effect, carry him back as his slave, without any further proceedings whatever.
The Bill became a law, with little or no opposition in either House, attracting scarce any public attention either in the North or South.
From this time till the year 1807, the history of the subject may be very briefly summed up. Petitions were from time to time received, complaining of the hardships suffered by emancipated negroes in some of the southern States, and praying the interference of Congress to mitigate the horrors of the slave trade. They gave birth to the usual amount of declamation, were in some cases referred to committees, in others either rejected, censured, or suffered to sleep on the table. The two parties of Federalists and Democrats, into which the nation was divided had long before this, become distinctly marked, every question which was broached assumed more and more a political aspect, and as the power of the Federalists hurried to its fall, the tendency grew constantly stronger in both, to make almost any sacrifice or concession, to win over southern votes. Hence the triumphs of the friends of emancipation were pretty evenly balanced by their losses. Slavery was rapidly disappearing from the northern States and the attempt repeatedly made to introduce it into the territory of Indiana, was as often defeated. But on the other hand South Carolina, after a long interval, again opened her ports to African slavers, and all attempts failed to impose the Constitutional tax upon the importation; while the purchase of Louisiana and the organization of Mississippi, gave additional strength to the South, though the danger of flooding them with slaves through the open ports of South Carolina was in some measure obviated by a special provision which closed these newly acquired territories against any of the recent arrivals.