No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due.
This constitutional provision is equally obligatory upon the legislative,
the executive, and judicial departments of the Government, and upon every
citizen of the United States.
Congress, however, must from necessity first act upon the subject by
prescribing the proceedings necessary to ascertain that the person is a
fugitive and the means to be used for his restoration to the claimant.
This was done by an act passed during the first term of President
Washington, which was amended by that enacted by the last Congress,
and it now remains for the executive and judicial departments to take
care that these laws be faithfully executed. This injunction of the
Constitution is as peremptory and as binding as any other; it stands
exactly on the same foundation as that clause which provides for the
return of fugitives from justice, or that which declares that no bill of
attainder or _ex post facto_ law shall be passed, or that which provides
for an equality of taxation according to the census, or the clause
declaring that all duties shall be uniform throughout the United States,
or the important provision that the trial of all crimes shall be by
jury. These several articles and clauses of the Constitution, all
resting on the same authority, must stand or fall together. Some
objections have been urged against the details of the act for the return
of fugitives from labor, but it is worthy of remark that the main
opposition is aimed against the Constitution itself, and proceeds from
persons and classes of persons many of whom declare their wish to see
that Constitution overturned. They avow their hostility to any law
which shall give full and practical effect to this requirement of the
Constitution. Fortunately, the number of these persons is comparatively
small, and is believed to be daily diminishing; but the issue which they
present is one which involves the supremacy and even the existence of
the Constitution.
Cases have heretofore arisen in which individuals have denied the
binding authority of acts of Congress, and even States have proposed to
nullify such acts upon the ground that the Constitution was the supreme
law of the land, and that those acts of Congress were repugnant to
that instrument; but nullification is now aimed not so much against
particular laws as being inconsistent with the Constitution as against
the Constitution itself, and it is not to be disguised that a spirit
exists, and has been actively at work, to rend asunder this Union,
which is our cherished inheritance from our Revolutionary fathers.
In my last annual message I stated that I considered the series of
measures which had been adopted at the previous session in reference
to the agitation growing out of the Territorial and slavery questions
as a final settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and
exciting subjects which they embraced, and I recommended adherence to
the adjustment established by those measures until time and experience
should demonstrate the necessity of further legislation to guard against
evasion or abuse. I was not induced to make this recommendation because
I thought those measures perfect, for no human legislation can be
perfect. Wide differences and jarring opinions can only be reconciled by
yielding something on all sides, and this result had been reached after
an angry conflict of many months, in which one part of the country was
arrayed against another, and violent convulsion seemed to be imminent.
Looking at the interests of the whole country, I felt it to be my duty
to seize upon this compromise as the best that could be obtained amid
conflicting interests and to insist upon it as a final settlement, to
be adhered to by all who value the peace and welfare of the country.
A year has now elapsed since that recommendation was made. To that
recommendation I still adhere, and I congratulate you and the country
upon the general acquiescence in these measures of peace which has been
exhibited in all parts of the Republic. And not only is there this
general acquiescence in these measures, but the spirit of conciliation
which has been manifested in regard to them in all parts of the country
has removed doubts and uncertainties in the minds of thousands of good
men concerning the durability of our popular institutions and given
renewed assurance that our liberty and our Union may subsist together
for the benefit of this and all succeeding generations.