The measure was considered, and various amendments were offered, until August 26, 1850, when it was passed by the Senate, and a few days later by the House;[158] the signature of President Fillmore was readily appended, and it became law, September 18, 1850.[159]
=§ 30. Provisions of the second Fugitive Slave Act.=--Every provision of the act was arranged for the protection and benefit of the slaveholders. It was based upon the law of 1793, but a number of new regulations were added.[160] Commissioners were to be chosen by the Circuit Courts of the United States and the Superior Courts of the Territories, to act with the judges of those courts in fugitive slave cases. Such commissioners could be fined one thousand dollars for refusing to issue a writ, and were liable for the value of any slave escaping from them. The testimony required for rendition was the official declaration of the fact of the escape of a slave by two witnesses, and the establishment of his identity by oath. The testimony of the accused could not be admitted. The right of trial by jury was not affirmed, and was therefore practically denied. A sheriff might call upon any bystander for help in executing the law, and the penalty for harboring or aiding in a rescue was increased from five hundred dollars, as in 1793, to one thousand dollars, and imprisonment for not more than six months. Should the slave escape, damages to the same amount were to be paid to the claimant. If a mob were feared, military force might be employed; and by a discrimination little likely to win respect for the act, the fee of the commissioner was to be increased from five to ten dollars whenever the case was decided in favor of the claimant.
=§ 31. Arguments for the bill.=--The debate on the Fugitive Slave Bill more than any other part of the Compromise illustrates the character of the slavery conflict. Most of the Southern members urged the immediate necessity of a new law, but some of the more ardent considered the evil to be one which could be reached only through a change in public sentiment, and they thought all legislation valueless.[161] Mr. Mason thus presented the evils with which the law must cope. He stated that the border States had found it an impossibility to reclaim a fugitive when he once got within the boundaries of a non-slaveholding State; "and this bill, or rather the amendments, ... have been framed with a great deal of consideration, to reach, if practicable, the evils which this experience has demonstrated to exist, and to furnish the appropriate remedy in enabling the owner of a fugitive to reclaim him." Under the existing laws, "you may as well go down into the sea and endeavor to recover from his native element a fish which has escaped from you, as expect to recover such a fugitive. Every difficulty is thrown in your way by the population.... There are armed mobs, rescues. This is the real state of things."[162]