Think about this:
"And it's a very odd thing that a region, the South, which supposedly believed in states' rights and local autonomy, pressed for this law [The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850] which allowed the federal government to completely override the legal processes in the North: to send marshals in, to avoid the local courts, and to just seize people (they might be free born) and just drag them into the South as slaves. It shows that the South didn't believe in states' rights. It believed in slavery. States' rights was a defense of slavery. But when active federal power was needed to defend slavery, they were perfectly happy to utilize that also.
The Fugitive Slave Law had many features which seemed to violate the liberties of free -white- northerners. It allowed the federal government to deputize citizens, even against their will, and force them to take part in posses or other groups to seize fugitive slaves. It also said that local courts could not adjudicate whether a person was a slave or not. It was federal commissioners who would come in and hear testimony. And the slave was not allowed to testify. It was the testimony of the owner, or the person who claimed to be the owner, of this alleged fugitive. And the commissioner would judge whether the owner's testimony was believable or not, and then send -- as they usually did -- the person back to slavery."
-- Eric Foner
The most intruseive American law in the 19th century was the FSL.
And Lincoln was a) not in office and b) strongly opposed to it.
Walt
Even more than that Walt. If the commissioner found that the black was not to be sent back south, the commissioner recieved a $5 fee from the government. If he found that the black was a "fugitive" he was awarded $5 by the government AND $5 by the person claiming ownership. Bounty hunters figured pretty quickly that they could "buy" a slave in the North for five dollars and sell him in the South for $1000. Such a deal!