It Is
Ordained That All Criminal Trials, Except In Cases Of Impeachment,
Shall Be By Jury.
There are after this certain miscellaneous articles, some of which
belong to the Constitution as it stood at first, and others of which
have been since added as amendments.
A citizen of one State is to
be a citizen of every State. Criminals from one State shall not be
free from pursuit in other States. Then comes a very material
enactment: "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." In speaking of a person held to labor
the Constitution intends to speak of a slave, and the article
amounts to a fugitive slave law. If a slave run away out of South
Carolina and find his way into Massachusetts, Massachusetts shall
deliver him up when called upon to do so by South Carolina. The
words certainly are clear enough. But Massachusetts strongly
objects to the delivery of such men when so desired. Such men she
has delivered up, with many groanings and much inward perturbation
of spirit. But it is understood, not in Massachusetts only, but in
the free-soil States generally, that fugitive slaves shall not be
delivered up by the ordinary action of the laws. There is a feeling
strong as that which we entertain with reference to the rendition of
slaves from Canada.
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