I agree with you about the morality of the situation, but the Constitution says the only thing that is of concern is the law in the state where he is held to be a slave.
Not everything in the Constitution was moral.
The personal liberty laws permitted the law to determine if claims were valid, or invalid, or if the person so claimed had even escaped.
To do otherwise was to have a ‘guilty until proved innocent’ standard for free states, but not for slave states, something the constitution never claimed or asserted.
I figure, per Taney’s interpretation of the constitution, any abolitionist could show up at at slave plantation, and assert that any slave owed him service in his free state.
If that occurred, there was no way that the claim could be denied right? No state court in a slave state could stand in the way of a claim of service, right? That would be unconstitutional, and the slave states were all about the constitution.
Right?
McElmoyle v. Cohen, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 312 (1839) established that a states laws of civil procedure had to be followed when an agent came from out of state with a court order.
That case a South Carolina court order was held to be subject to a Georgia civil procedure that enacted a statue of limitations, and so could not be enforced in Georgia.
With that precedent in hand, northern states enacted the personal liberty laws that subjected slave catchers to rules of civil procedure in states that didn’t allow property in human beings.
It was a key fact on the ground when Taney wrote his opinion permitting slave catchers to work with federal marshals but not requiring that state courts and officials work with slave catchers.