"As I remember, Northern states were not compelled to return slaves by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.
The Federal government was tasked with the return of the fugitive slave."
[BJK's response]Not at all:
"In response to the weakening of the original fugitive slave act, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made any Federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000.
Law-enforcement officials everywhere now had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership.
The sentences you just quoted from Wikipedia only applied to federal officials, not state officials. This would be consistent with the Prigg v. Pennsylvania ruling. From The Slave Catchers by Stanley W. Campbell:
United States marshals and deputy marshals who refused to act under the law were liable to a fine of one thousand dollars ...
Section 5 of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law [Link], in which the fine is mentioned, applies to federal officers, not state officers, although the Wikipedia writer misinterpreted it otherwise. One has to be careful when using Wikipedia quotes.
Here is Section 5 in it's entirety ["paragraph" breaks mine for readability]:
SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant, or other process, when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such claimant, by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such marshal;
and after arrest of such fugitive, by such marshal or his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the provisions of this act, should such fugitive escape, whether with or without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal shall be liable, on his official bond, to be prosecuted for the benefit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped;
and the better to enable the said commissioners, when thus appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with authority to such commissioners, or the persons to be appointed by them, to execute process as aforesaid, to summon and call to their aid the bystanders, or posse comitatus of the proper county, when necessary to ensure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provisions of this act;
and all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be required, as aforesaid, for that purpose; and said warrants shall run, and be executed by said officers, any where in the State within which they are issued.
You will notice in my last "paragraph" of Section 5 the requirement of citizens to aid in the execution of the law. That was the part of the law that I objected to in my post above.
Continuing on with BJK's quotes from Wikipedia:
The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf.
Once a federal commissioner determined that the person in question was a fugitive slave based on a court document from the state from which the slave escaped, the slave became subject to the laws of the state from which the slave escaped. Northern state laws that required a jury trial no longer applied.
Now back to BJK's Wikipedia quotes:
In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.
That comes from Section 7 of the 1850 law and it was intended to prevent people from aiding the fugitive slave to hide or escape. In other words, the 1850 law punished people who obstructed the return of fugitive slaves called for in the Constitution. Here is Section 7 of the 1850 law:
SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.
MamaTexan is right about the fugitive slave clause being placed in the Constitution so that Congress did not have to power to legislate anything it wanted about fugitive slaves. By placing the fugitive slave clause in Article IV, Congress could only pass laws that upheld the Constitutional rights of slave holders to their slaves. Congress might have been able to pass laws that endangered the right of slave holders if Congress had been given broad undefined powers to legislate about fugitive slaves in Article I.
Now I will close this post with a picture from my trip of the last two weeks, one of moss covered oaks in the Deep South:
