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The practice of slavery was an exception to the principles of liberty in the Constitution. Assisting escaping slaves did not violate those principles, it violated the exceptional 'property rights' of slave owners.
By accepting the peculiar institution as 'legal' under the Constitution, - the framers acknowledged that some humans did not have life & liberty, -- that they were property.. This was an exception to the rule..
Get it [the principle] yet?

I don't get it yet.

I'm starting to doubt you want to, -- or ever will..

The founders had all kinds of exceptions to equality under the law and applied the law to various classes of humans in various ways. Examples: Minors, women, and men without property.

Men without property are free to acquire it, women have been 'freed', and minors are still exceptions, as most all can agree..

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BTW, -- you raised the 'slavery' issue back at #122, after I'd posted about the:

Constitutional duties of persons [ALL residents] under U.S. or State jurisdiction:

Jon Roland
Constitutional Rights, Powers and Duties
Address:http://www.constitution.org/powright.htm

Did you ever intend to 'connect the dots' between our Constitutional duties, and your objections to Constitutional flaws?
Do you feel that such flaws absolve you of responsibility to support its basic principles?

The practice of slavery was an exception to the principles of liberty in the Constitution.

Only for those that saw the slaves as worthy or deserving of liberty. The slave holders valued the "principles of liberty" for certain classes of humans, but not others. So did the Founders who opposed slavery. Almost all Founders saw no reason to include women, for example, in the class of "those allowed to vote".

Some Founders opposed slavery, and for different reasons. But they found that another principle, the principle of a strong national defense, won out over the conflicting "principles of Constitutional liberty" and the other reasons for opposing slavery.