to reclaim their fugitive slaves.

Sec.6. The manner in which slaves are to be reclaimed, is prescribed by an
act of congress. The owner of a runaway slave, finding him in a free
state, arrests him and brings him before a magistrate; and if he proves
his title to the slave to the satisfaction of the magistrate, the slave
is delivered to the owner or claimant. Free colored persons have
sometimes been arrested, and, on false testimony, delivered to
claimants, taken to slave states and held as slaves. Hence the opinion
prevails extensively that a person claimed as a slave should be entitled
to trial by a jury; and that the fact of his being a slave should be
proved to the satisfaction of a jury before his delivery to a claimant.
Many persons, believing freedom to be the natural right of all men, hold
that all laws for returning fugitive slaves are wrong, and ought not to
be obeyed.

Sec.7. The first clause of the next section provides, that "new states may
be admitted into this union," and requires the consent of congress and
of the states concerned, to the formation of new states from old ones. A
provision of this kind was deemed necessary in view of the large extent
of vacant lands within the United States, and of the inconvenient size
of some of the states then existing. The territory north-west of the
Ohio river had been ceded to the general government by the states
claiming the same; and a territorial government had already been
established therein by the celebrated ordinance of 1787. From this
territory have since been formed and admitted, the states of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Sec.8. South of the Ohio river also was a large tract, principally
unsettled, within the chartered limits of Virginia, North Carolina and
Georgia, extending west to the Mississippi river, from which, it was
presumed, new states would be formed. Justice, however, to these states,
as well as to others in all future time, required the general provision
above mentioned, that "no state should be divided without the consent of
its legislature and of congress."

Sec.9. The next clause authorizes congress "to dispose of and make all
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other
property of the United States." If the general government has power to
acquire territory, it must have the right to exercise authority over it.
This express grant establishes beyond doubt a power which had been
questioned under t