other party_, which is to be sued in this, as in
all other personal actions, in the place where he resides.

In the face of these considerations, it is no wonder that the Congress
of 1793 were so unanimous in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law. Though
this law did not provide for a jury trial, yet its authors all knew that
such trial was not denied to the fugitive slave, if he had a mind to
claim it. Hence the law was passed by that Congress, without even an
allusion to this modern abolition objection to its constitutionality.
Among all the members of that body who had taken part in framing the
Constitution of the United States,[226] not one was found to hint at
such an objection. This objection is of more recent origin, if not of
less respectable parentage.

An amendment to the law in question, allowing a trial by jury to the
fugitive slave in a distant State, would indeed be a virtual denial of
the constitutional right of the master. Either because the jury could
not agree, or because distant testimony might be demanded, the trial
would probably be continued, and put off, until the expense, the loss of
time, and the worriment of vexatious proceedings, would be more than the
slave is worth. The language of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in relation to
an action for damages by the master, is peculiarly applicable to such a
trial by jury. The master "_would be compelled_," says he, "_to
encounter the costs and expenses of a suit, prosecuted at a distance
from his own home, and to sacrifice perhaps the value of his property
in endeavoring_ to obtain compensation." This is not the kind of
remedy, says he, the Constitution "intended to give. The delivery of the
property itself--its PROMPT AND IMMEDIATE DELIVERY--_is plainly
required, and was intended to be secured_." Such prompt and immediate
delivery was a part of "the customary or common law" at the time the
Constitution was adopted, and its framers, no doubt, intended that this
practice should be enforced by the clause in question, as appears from
the fact that so many of them concurred in the Act of 1793.

But if such right to a prompt and immediate delivery be guaranteed by
the Constitution itself, then, with all due submission, we would ask,
what power has Congress to limit or abridge this right? If under and by
virtue of the Constitution this right to a prompt and immediate delivery
be secured, then what power has Congress to say there shall _not_ be a
prompt or immediate