What did the Declaration of Independence Establish

Thanks for this post.

MamaTexan post #257, on Prigg vs Pennsylvania, responding to the accurate statement that: "The Supreme Court's decisive 1842 action in striking down Pennsylvania's 1788 and 1826 (note the years!) Fugitive Slave Laws (which protected runaway slaves) left some ambiguity":

"BS! That was a finding by the Appeals Court FOR the Supreme Court.
Appeals Courts set LEGAL PRECEDENTS:"

I don't understand either the source of your confusion here, or the reason for your outburst.

The basic facts of Prigg vs Pennsylvania are well known:

On December 12, 1787 Pennsylvania ratified the new US Constitution, including its provisions requiring the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.
Three months later, on March 29, 1788, the Pennsylvania legislature amended its 1780 law abolishing slavery as follows:
In other words: forbidding the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.
As of the date of Pennsylvania's new law protecting fugitive slaves, neither Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia nor North Carolina had yet ratified the new Constitution.
And yet over the next 18 months they all did so, despite Pennsylvania's preexisting law protecting fugitive slaves!
Therefore it it totally impossible to pretend that Northern Laws protecting fugitive slaves were adequate cause for secession when such law never stopped a single state from ratifying the new Constitution.
On February 12, 1793, the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 thus satisfying the Constitution's requirement that runaways be returned.
On March 27, 1826, Pennsylvania enacted further legal protections for fugitive slaves.
This new Pennsylvania law did not bring about threats of secession by any slave-state.
On April 1, 1837, Edward Prigg kidnapped a slave and her children (one free born) from York Country in Pennsylvania, returning and selling them in Maryland.
In 1839 a local York County PA court convicted Prigg of a felony, kidnapping, based on Pennsylvania's long-standing law.
In 1842 the US Supreme Court overturned Pennsylvania's laws as unconstitutional and reversed Prigg's conviction.
But in writing his opinion, Chief Justice Story added some ambiguity which opened the door for Northern states to pass new laws which only protected fugitive slaves to the degree that they prevented local authorities from enforcing federal laws.
Some northern states soon passed such weak laws.
But even these laws, weak as they were, were soon overturned by the Compromise of 1850.

So here's the bottom line: Northern laws protecting fugitive slaves never prevented a single slave-state from joining the union in 1788.
Nor did they ever cause a slave state to secede before 1860.
All such laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1842, but the Supreme's ambiguous language allowed some states to pass very weak protections for fugitive slaves.

But even those new laws were eliminated by the Compromise of 1850.

In short: all such claims -- that Northern fugitive slave laws were a material breech of contract justifying South Carolina's declaration of secession -- are totally bogus to the max.

There was no breech of contract, and no cause for secession.
South Carolina declared secession "at pleasure" because of the 100% constitutional election of Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery Republicans.

So South Carolina's 1860 declaration of secession was unconstitutional, and it's unlawful violent assaults on and seizures of Federal property were acts of insurrection, rebellion and "domestic violence."

When the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, on May 6, 1861, its fate was sealed.

Please provide evidence showing where anyone ever considered that Emerich de Vattel's book the Law of Nations has authority over or supercedes the US Constitution.

I've already given the evidence from Founders, early American legal treatise and Judicial Office holders to 'prove' Vattel was used as THE basis for the treaty known as the Constitution. I will not do so again.

The evidence has proven the northern states [and later the federal government] repeatedly violated the provisions of Article V, and consequently violated both the Constitutional supremacy clause and the Law of Nature and Nations.

The South weren't the ones 'violating' the Laws, they were trying to uphold them.

-----

I also note that you again demand evidence while providing none. You obfuscate the question, fail to acknowledge when a point has been made and change the direction of the discussion instead of discussing the evidence itself.

Since that was my THIRD request for hard evidence to the contrary, and that's the THIRD time your reply was "Blah, blah.... you're wrong", you needn't waste your time in responding, as I will no longer be responding to you.

I've already given the evidence from Founders, early American legal treatise and Judicial Office holders to 'prove' Vattel was used as THE basis for the treaty known as the Constitution.

I believe that I understand your line of reasoning better now. I underestimated the importance that you placed on this foreigner Vattel. I kept thinking to myself "But isn't it leftists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg who look externally for the basis of our laws?!" That threw me for a bit.

I understand your appreciation for the reference that Vattel provided to our founders but reject your notion that they did a copy/paste of his opinion into our laws.

I will not do so again.

Whew, I'm glad that's over with!

The evidence has proven the northern states [and later the federal government] repeatedly violated the provisions of Article V, and consequently violated both the Constitutional supremacy clause and the Law of Nature and Nations.

No, actually nothing has been proven except that the confederate states attempted an insurrection and were put down.

Since that was my THIRD request for hard evidence to the contrary, and that's the THIRD time your reply was "Blah, blah.... you're wrong", you needn't waste your time in responding, as I will no longer be responding to you.

"Blah, blah, blah..."

Please note my responses in #299 and 302 above.

rustbucket, post #265 in reference to James Madison's veracity (or lack thereof) at age 79 in 1830 (Madison died in 1836):

"Thanks for the ping and your kind words today, BroJoeK.
I am indeed old and tired as MamaTexan characterized Madison in his letter to Trist."

And yet just as fully capable as Madison was of putting together cogent facts and coherent arguments to make your well thought-out points.
In no way can "age" be used to criticize or besmirch yours or Madison's views.

rustbucket, referring to the Supreme Court's 1842 ruling in Prigg vs Pennsylvania:

"That doesn't seem all that ambiguous... The Supreme Court in the Prigg case ruled the 1826 Pennsylvania law unconstitutional."

Correct. I don't understand MamaTexan's confusion here.
She seems to have it all backwards, and even claimed it was not a Supreme Court ruling!

But rusty, you didn't quote the "ambiguous" part:

"Though Story ruled the Pennsylvania laws unconstitutional, his opinion left the door open for further such actions by the state in his writing:

'As to the authority so conferred upon state magistrates [to deal with runaway slaves], while a difference of opinion has existed, and may exist still on the point, in different states, whether state magistrates are bound to act under it; none is entertained by this Court that state magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless prohibited by state legislation' - Justice Story

"This last phrase - 'unless prohibited by state legislation' - became the impetus for a number of personal liberties laws enacted by Pennsylvania and the other Northern states.
These laws did as the Court had suggested - they prohibited state officials from interfering with runaway slaves in any capacity.
Runaways could not be caught or incarcerated, cases could not be heard, and no assistance could be offered to those wishing to recapture slaves.
The Fugitive Slave Act still stood, but only federal agents could enforce it."

Point is, in 1842 the Supreme Court struck down Northern state personal liberty laws, some of which had existed since before the Constitution was fully ratified.

rustbucket, referring to the new 1850 Fugitive Slave Law:

"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."

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 suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf.
In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.

Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work.
Slave owners only needed to supply an affidavit to a Federal marshal to capture an escaped slave.
Since any suspected slave was not eligible for a trial this led to many free blacks being conscripted into slavery as they had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations."

Please note: in terms of average wages, $1,000 in 1850 equates to around half a million dollars today -- a pretty hefty fine.

It would appear that no one was very happy with the outcome of Prigg vs Pennsylvania. The abolitionists and moralists were outraged that the federal government would accede to the slaveocracy, the states outraged that the federal government would allow guns for hire complete latitude to invade their states and use the northern states for "fishing", and the slavers? They were outraged that they could reclaim their ~~niggers~~ chattel - and indeed snatch up any blacks off the streets and claim ownership - but they did so under color of the federal government they hated so much.

Now that must have smarted!

She seems to have it all backwards, and even claimed it was not a Supreme Court ruling!

As I never said any such thing, you are a blatant liar.

BJK in post #305 to rustbucket, referring to MamaTexan's views on Prigg vs Pennsylvania: "She seems to have it all backwards, and even claimed it was not a Supreme Court ruling!"

MamaTexan responding in post #307: "As I never said any such thing, you are a blatant liar."

But in post #257, MamaTexan did deny that Prigg vs. Pennsylvania was a Supreme Court ruling:

"BS! That was a finding by the Appeals Court FOR the Supreme Court.
Appeals Courts set LEGAL PRECEDENTS:"

Of course, I don't claim that MamaTexan is a "blatant liar", just that she is obviously very confused and distraught.

;-)

Sorry to be so long in replying. I've been busy. And I’m heading out again Tuesday for a couple of weeks if I can make all the needed reservations. It's nice to be retired, at least before all the Fed's printed money causes hyperinflation.

[me]: The Supreme Court in the Prigg case ruled the 1826 Pennsylvania law unconstitutional.

[you]: Which is true, but they also said the federal government had the authority to legislate on the subject, which is false.

To prevent the federal government from claiming that authority is precisely why the Founders put in such a strange place, and not under the powers of Congress.

The problem is that an earlier case in 1835, Jack v. Martin, the appeals court found the federal government didn't have the authority to regulate it either, BUT the clause and the Act of 1793 made it uniform, so the clause and act together were judged to be perfectly constitutional.

Enforceable by all [via the Fugitive slave act of 1793], yet actionable by none [via the 10th Amendment of the Constitution].

There was no authority for the federal government to hear any case again based on the issue of slavery....period.

I've not seen that argument before. Thank you for bringing it up. I started looking into it a few days ago.

You mentioned a New York case, Jack v. Martin. Both the 1834 Jack v. Martin case (12 Wend. 311) by the New York Supreme Court and the 1835 review of the 1834 case by the New York Court of Errors (14 Wend. 507), another state court, were among the cases that Justice Story cited in Prigg v. Pennsylvania as supporting the constitutionality of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law. Here is what Justice Story said about the constitutionality of the 1793 act in his delivery of the Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) decision [my emphasis below]:

The same uniformity of acquiescence in the validity of the act of 1793, upon the other part of the subject-matter, that of fugitive slaves, has prevailed throughout the whole Union, until a comparatively recent period. Nay! being from its nature and character more readily susceptible of being brought into controversy in courts of justice, than the former, and of enlisting in opposition to it, the feelings, and it may be, the prejudices, of some portions of the non-slaveholding states, it has naturally been brought under adjudication in several states in the Union, and particularly in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania; and on all these occasions its validity has been affirmed. The cases cited at the bar, of Wright v. Deacon, 5 Serg. & Rawle 62; Glen v. Hodges, 9 Johns. 67; Jack v. Martin, 12 Wend. 311; s. c. 12 [sic; should be 14] Ibid. 507; and Commonwealth v. Griffin, 2 Pick. 11, are directly in point. So far as the judges of the courts of the United States have been called upon to enforce it, and to grant the certificate required by it, it is believed, that it has been uniformly recognised as a binding and valid law, and as imposing a constitutional duty. …

The court in Prigg did not just rely on precedent. Justice Story also said the following in the decision [my emphasis again]:

But we do not wish to rest our present opinion upon the ground [41 U.S. 539, 622] either of contemporaneous exposition, or long acquiescence, or even practical action; neither do we mean to admit the question to be of a doubtful nature, and therefore, as properly calling for the aid of such considerations. On the contrary, our judgment would be the same, if the question were entirely new, and the act of congress were of recent enactment. We hold the act to be clearly constitutional, in all its leading provisions, and, indeed, with the exception of that part which confers authority upon state magistrates, to be free from reasonable doubt and difficulty, upon the grounds already stated. As to the authority so conferred upon state magistrates, while a difference of opinion has existed, and may exist still, on the point, in different states, whether state magistrates are bound to act under it, none is entertained by this court, that state magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless prohibited by state legislation. …

From what I've been able to find, the Jack v Martin 1835 Court of Errors case affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of New York in the 1834 Jack v. Martin case, and the decision to affirm the 1834 case was unanimous. Here is a link to the 1835 Jack v. Martin case [Link], and here is a link to some extensive quotes from the 1834 Jack v. Martin case along with explanations about the 1835 case [An essay upon the constitutional rights as to slave property. Republished from the "Southern literary messenger," for Feb. 1840. By Robinson Conway, 1805-1884.]. The 1840 article gives the following details below about the 1835 Jack v. Martin case in the Court of Errors:

After this decision of the supreme court of the state of New York in the case of Jack v. Martin, the case was removed in behalf of the slave into the court of errors – a court constituted of the president of the senate, chancellor of the state, judges of the supreme court, and all the senators. The hearing before the court of errors was in December, 1835.

Only two opinions were delivered at large. They were by the chancellor, and senator Bishop.

The Chancellor argued that the states had the right to legislate, not the US Congress. Senator Bishop made a lot of the same arguments to the contrary that had been made in the 1834 case and recommended that the 1834 case be affirmed. As vote to affirm was unanimous, the Chancellor must have followed the recommendation of Senator Bishop.

If you have sources that go into the Jack v. Martin cases in more detail than what I found, please provide a link or a source. It may be that what I found is not the entire case. I've seen things on the web that said the Court of Errors case ruled the 1793 law was unconstitutional but returned the slave anyway because the Constitution said that the slave should be returned. That is not the way I read the links above.

I found the two Jack v. Martin cases (1834 and 1835) characterized as "Federal power supreme" in "THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE YEAR 1905, SHOWING THE ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION," by Charles Z. Lincoln [Link].

There was also the summary of the arguments in Prigg v. Pennsylvania that appeared in the text before the opinion delivered by Justice Story that said the following:

The act of congress had never been questioned upon this ground, till the case of Jack v. Martin came before the court of errors of the state of New York. And even in that case, it was a mere intimation thrown out by the chancellor, but neither reasoned out, nor relied on.

I was impressed by a comment by Justice McLean in Prigg v. Pennsylvania about the 1793 law (emphasis mine):

It is contended, that the power to execute it rests with the states. The law was designed to protect the rights of the slave-holder against the states opposed to those rights; and yet, by this argument, the effective power is in the hands of those on whom it is to operate. This would produce a strange anomaly in the history of legislation; it would show an inexperience and folly in the venerable framers of the constitution, from which, of all public bodies that ever assembled, they were, perhaps, most exempt. The clause of the constitution under consideration declares that no fugitive from labor shall be discharged from such labor, by any law or regulation of the state into which he may have fled. Is the state to judge of this? Is it left for the state to determine what effect shall be given to this and other parts of the provision? …

After Congress passed the 1793 law, did it have no further authority to legislate to protect the right of slave owners to recover fugitive slaves? That sounds a bit like what you are saying, but perhaps I misinterpreted what you said. The comments of Justice Wayne in Prigg v. Pennsylvania address that issue:

That the act of congress of the 12th February 1793, entitled 'an act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,' gives a remedy; but does not exhaust the remedies which congress may legislate upon the subject.

I think that unless Congress legislated, slave states and slave owners would bring many, many suits against the laws of Northern states that delayed or obstructed the return of fugitive slaves. Congress did legislate further on the matter in the 1850 fugitive slave law. It was their right to do that. However, I have problems with the 1850 law in that it imposed on ordinary citizens a duty to help the federal marshals in capturing or returning the fugitive slave, even though such actions might be against the moral code or conscience of those citizens.

If the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution that protected the rights of slaveholders could be rendered moot by the actions of Northern states going back on their word, then of what use was the constitutional bargain that made the Union of Northern and Southern states possible?

BroJoeK, I'll have to excuse myself again. We are headed to the East Coast to see my wife's relatives. I'll be back in a couple of weeks if I survive the relatives.

[BJK]: rustbucket, referring to the new 1850 Fugitive Slave Law:

"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:

There is no evidence I'm aware of if any South Carolina fugitive slave was ever protected and refused to be returned on demand by any Northern state.

I don't know whether any state refused to return a fugitive slave from South Carolina to his/her owners. That might take some searching to find. But I did find where a fugitive slave from South Carolina who escaped to Massachusetts decided to flee to Canada after the passage of the 1850 fugitive slave law. He was aided in that escape by Harriet Beecher Stowe who sheltered him and gave him refuge, food, clothes, and money in his escape to Canada. So, Harriet Beecher Stowe could have been fined and jailed by the 1850 law had her actions been discovered.

This incident was mentioned on page 36 of the book The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina by the escaped slave John Andrew Johnson.

Of course, the later Massachusetts personal liberty law made it more expensive to recover a fugitive slave than the slave was worth. So if any South Carolina slave escaped to Massachusetts after that law was passed, he or she was essentially free through the actions of the state of Massachusetts. The last fugitive slave returned to his/her owner from Massachusetts was in 1854.

Oops, the escaped slave in my post 311 who wrote the book about his experiences and his being aided by Harriet Beecher Stowe was John Andrew Jackson, not John Andrew Johnson.

rusty quoting the 1850 Federal Fugitive Slave Law: "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."

rusty: "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. "

This and other provisions of the 1850 law show that it required not just Federal enforcement of Fugitive Slave Laws but also state and local enforcement.

Of course, some northern states did object and passed "personal liberty laws" attempting to protect fugitive slaves.
But if you look at the list of those northern states, you'll see that without exception they were all Far Northern Tier states -- in other words none bordered a slave-holding state, meaning any fugitives from the Deep South (i.e., South Carolina) must first run the gauntlet of slave-catchers in the Upper South, then Border States and finally those Lower-Tier northern states which did help enforce Fugitive Slave Laws.

Point is: few if any Deep South slaves ever escaped to freedom in the Far North or Canada.

rusty: "I did find where a fugitive slave from South Carolina who escaped to Massachusetts decided to flee to Canada after the passage of the 1850 fugitive slave law."

This one shining example of a fugitive slave, John Andrew Jackson, who escaped from South Carolina sometime in the 1840s(!) and then to Canada after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, is somehow justification for South Carolina Slave-Holders to declare secession in December of 1860?

I don't think so.

I thought that this thread had assumed room temperature ;-)

I’ve read through the added posts and would redirect y’all to my post #306.

I expressed surprise that any southron partisan would be dismayed at the decision rendered in Prigg vs Pennsylvania because it upheld their “rights” and punished the northern states for interference.

Of course it also set our national course towards direct conflict because it defined a set of conditions that were intolerable - hence the personal liberty laws that came as a natural consequence. But then you can’t please everybody...

This and other provisions of the 1850 law show that it required not just Federal enforcement of Fugitive Slave Laws but also state and local enforcement.

Nope. It just commanded the help of "good citizens" when asked by the marshal or deputy marshal. Good citizens obviously must not have included ardent abolitionists or state officials following personal liberty laws, LOL. Kidding aside, I'm not sure refusing to aid the marshals carried any penalty.

I think the commanding of citizens by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law to help the marshals and deputy marshals in their duties to recover fugitive slaves went against the personal convictions about slavery that many in the North felt. I suspect this command was only honored occasionally by people who felt it their duty to help. Others who objected to being commanded to assist the marshals against their own consciences probably ignored any requests from the marshals for help. And I'm not sure they suffered any convictions in court.

Commanding citizens to aid the federal marshals may have been in essence a dead letter of the law. The law doesn't mention a penalty for refusing to help the marshals. Refusing to help is not the same thing as aiding the fugitive by giving him/her shelter, food, etc., or freeing the slave after he/she was captured by the marshals. It was hard enough to get convictions from Northern juries for those who actually rescued them or fought the marshals, let alone for those who refused to help arrest him/her based on their personal convictions about slavery.

One notorious case that the Campbell book describes was at Christiana, Pennsylvania on September 11, 1851. Neighboring white Quakers were asked to help by U.S. Deputy Marshal Kline. They refused to help. One of the Quakers then conferred with the blacks gathering to help the fugitives. The blacks immediately started shooting after conferring with the Quaker. The slave owner was killed and his son seriously wounded. Three blacks were killed. The fugitive slaves escaped.

Forty five people including the Quakers who refused to aid the marshals and a large number of blacks were tried for "high treason" in connection with this rescue, not for violating the Fugitive Slave Law. The first to be tried was the Quaker who conferred with the blacks and apparently told them to fight back. He was acquitted before a Pennsylvania jury, and the US government then dropped the charges against the rest of the group. The government might have had more luck if they had charged the defendants with violating the Fugitive Slave Law in rescuing the slaves.

I'll make my following personal comments in blue font about a Quaker ancestor of mine to distinguish it from the current discussion. As a side note, one of my ancestors was a Pennsylvania Quaker. He was a friend of William Penn back in England and in Pennsylvania and named Penn as executor of his will. My ancestor's brother married Cromwell's daughter. My ancestor was elected to the (five member, if memory serves) Provincial Council that governed the Pennsylvania Colony. Penn named him to be a translator for the accused witch in a witch trial. Top that for an unusual ancestor, you guys.

Anyway, one time I tried to find his grave figuring that as a prominent person he would probably have had a notable tombstone or plaque. I went into a ghetto area of Philadelphia to a Quaker graveyard near where he had lived. The graveyard was up a little hill and hidden from the surrounding apartment buildings by trees and was out of view of the street. There were many tombstones. The graves were from the same period when my ancestor lived. I hadn't realized, however, that all of the Quaker tombstones were small, simple, plain, and identical except for the names. His grave was not there, as best I could tell. I kept hearing people in the surrounding buildings and street. In a Jesse Jackson moment I got concerned about my safety in the isolated graveyard, so I hightailed it back to my car. Fortunately, my car was still there.

Back to the Fugitive Slave Law. There were a few convictions of fugitive slave rescuers in this period before the WBTS but also many acquittals or lack of charges. Marshals attempting to capture or return fugitive slaves to their owners were arrested by northern states, but the Federal courts released them.

A key case was that of fugitive Anthony Burns in Boston in 1854. "Highly inflammatory speeches" had been made by people such as Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall. Conspirators planned to use the meeting at Faneuil Hall as a cover and to charge the courthouse and rescue Burns at the end of the Faneuil Hall meeting. That they tried to do. Axes were used to cut open the courthouse doors, and one of the guards inside was killed. The rescue attempt failed, however.

During the rest of the trial the square near the courthouse was cleared of several thousand people by troops. Two companies of artillery were summoned by the mayor. Several agitators were arrested for trying to incite violence. The judge said the Fugitive Slave Law was constitutional and the slave was to be returned to his owner. The day that Burns was put on a ship to be returned to Virginia, there were 20,000 people estimated to be in the streets. An entire brigade of Massachusetts militia cleared the street from the courthouse to the wharf. Burns was marched to the wharf in a detachment of 200 troops. There were cannons placed to sweep the square if needed.

A trial of the agitators was held the next year. Wendell Phillips was one of those charged for the riot and attempt to rescue Burns. The defendants were acquitted on a technicality (the power of the federal commissioner to issue a warrant to arrest the fugitive slave had not been described in the charges). The court refused to reseat the Grand Jury to redo the charges. None of the would-be rescuers had even gotten close to the slave and that was thought to be a problem with the indictment.

That slave was the last to be returned from Massachusetts to the state from which he fled. I think the Massachusetts personal liberty law, at least in the form in which I have seen it, dated from 1854. There were no further attempts to retrieve fugitive slaves from New England itself by due process after that. The Massachusetts law held that people who arrested a person alleged to be a fugitive slave who was found not to be a slave could be fined up to $5,000 and sentenced to prison for from one to five years. Plus, it cost more than the slave was worth to go through the process in the courts.

There were hundreds of fugitive slaves living more or less openly in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Frederic Douglas lived and worked there as did escaped South Carolina slave Billy Winters (also called Daniel Fisher to avoid detection). See Link which says in part, "The passage of the fugitive slave law in 1850 forced Winters to spend more than 13 years in New Bedford, Mass., a city that at the time was more friendly to escaped slaves than Connecticut." Also see Another Link that says, "By the 1840s New Bedford had become home to some 300-700 escaped slaves …" There were lots of Quakers in New Bedford.

The Massachusetts personal liberty law, immense crowds opposing the return of fugitive slaves, and flouting of the federal law worked to stop the return of fugitive slaves to their home states.

Point is: few if any Deep South slaves ever escaped to freedom in the Far North or Canada.

I'll go along with relatively few, but your "if any" is over the top. You know better than that. I've cited one South Carolina fugitive slave in a previous post and another one above. Here is a reference to two more from South Carolina who escaped from Charleston on a ship to Boston in May 1860: See Link. One was captured and the other escaped, perhaps all the way to Canada.