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i860] The Fugitive Slave Law. 41 T governments, but with much less show of right than in the case of California ; and Congress did not hesitate to ignore their request to be admitted into the Union. It organised them as Territories, with nothing said about slavery. The only thing of substance that the southern leaders seemed to have gained from the bundle of bills which made up the " Compromise," as they looked back upon it, was the Fugitive Slave Law; and there must have been some among them who seriously doubted the profit that would accrue to them even from that. The surrender of fugitive slaves was a matter which could never be settled in a way to satisfy both sections of the country ; and it soon became evident enough that this particular effort to settle it was likely to generate passions which must grow hotter and hotter with each application of the law, promising, not accommodation, but a more perilous conflict and separation of interests. The new law was not novel in object or principle ; it was novel only in character and operation, and attracted attention because of the strong forces of opinion now set hotly against it. The Constitution itself directed that not only fugitives from justice, but also all persons " held to service or labour in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another," should be taken and returned, to receive their punishment or fulfil their service; and so early as 1793 Congress had passed a law intended to secure the return of both classes of fugitives. But this older law had proved less and less satisfactory with regard to fugitive slaves, because anti-slavery sentiment had grown apace in the North, and the officials of the northern States had become more and more slack in assisting at the apprehension of negroes who had run away from their masters in the South. The southern leaders, therefore, had demanded a law more stringent and effectual ; and the law of 1850 had been framed to meet their wishes. Federal, not State, officials were to execute it, under heavy penalties for any neglect on their part in the thorough fulfilment of the duties it laid upon them. The mere affidavit of a master who claimed a runaway black was made conclusive evidence of ownership. The law bound federal judges and commissioners to issue the warrant of apprehension, obliged the marshals of the United States to make the arrest and safely deliver their prisoner, and operated even against the hearing of an application for a writ of habeas corpus. Many southern masters used the law to the full limit of its rigour. Negroes who had been living in the North for many years were reclaimed and carried South under circumstances which greatly stirred the pity and sympathy of those among whom they had been settled. Mobs frequently attempted the rescue of apprehended fugitives, and sometimes succeeded, to the defeat of the law and the greater exasperation of feeling on both sides. Men of influence and position, besides such men as usually make up mobs, encouraged, and upon occasion took part in, even the more violent sort of resistance to the execution of the law, c. M. ii. vii. CH. xiii. 27