Personal Liberty Laws

• Author: William M. Wiecek
• Pages: 1901-1902

Page 1901

Between 1826 and 1858, all the free states east of Illinois enacted "personal liberty laws" providing one or more procedural remedies to persons seized as fugitive slaves. These included the writs of HABEAS CORPUS and personal replevin. Some personal liberty laws also provided jury trial to alleged fugitives; prohibited kidnaping or enticement of black persons out of state; imposed more stringent state procedures for recaptions; or provided the services of state's attorneys to alleged fugitives. The Vermont Freedom Act of 1858 declared every slave who came into the state free.

In PRIGG V. PENNSYLVANIA (1842), Justice JOSEPH STORY held that state statutes interfering with recaptures under the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act were unconstitutional. But in an OBITER DICTUM unique to him, Story stated that state officials need not participate in a recapture under federal authority. This spurred enactment of statutes prohibiting state officials such as judges and sheriffs from participating in fugitive recaptures and prohibiting the use of state facilities such as jails to slave-catchers trying to hold runaways. Proslavery spokesmen tirelessly denounced the personal liberty laws. In his last annual message, President JAMES BUCHANAN blamed the crisis of 1860 on them. South Carolina cited the laws as justification for its SECESSION.

WILLIAM M. WIECEK

(1986)

(SEE ALSO: Fugitive Slavery.)

Page 1902

Bibliography

MORRIS, THOMAS D....