the fourth article which provides as follows:

"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."

The President and Vice-President of the United States, every Senator and
Representative in Congress, the members of every State Legislature, and
"all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of
the several States," were required to take an oath (or affirmation) to
support the Constitution containing these provisions. It is easy to
understand how those who considered them in conflict with the "higher
law" of religion or morality might refuse to take such an oath or hold
such an office--as the members of some religious sects refuse to take
any oath at all or to bear arms in the service of their country--but it
is impossible to reconcile with the obligations of honor or honesty the
conduct of those who, having taken such an oath, made use of the powers
and opportunities of the offices held under its sanctions to nullify its
obligations and neutralize its guarantees. The halls of Congress
afforded the vantage-ground from which assaults were made upon these
guarantees. The Legislatures of various Northern States enacted laws to
hinder the execution of the provisions made for the rendition of
fugitives from service; State officials lent their aid to the work of
thwarting them; and city mobs assailed the officers engaged in the duty
of enforcing them.

With regard to the provision of the Constitution above quoted, for the
restoration of fugitives from service or labor, my own view was, and is,
that it was not a proper subject for legislation by the Federal
Congress, but that its enforcement should have been left to the
respective States, which, as parties to the compact of union, should
have been held accountable for its fulfillment. Such was actually the
case in the earlier and better days of the republic. No fugitive
slave-law existed, or was required, for two years after the organization
of the Federal Government, and, when one was then passed, it was merely
as an incidental appendage to an act regulating the mode of rendition of
fugitives from _justice_--not from service or labor.[27]

In 1850 a more elaborate law was enacted as part of the celebrate