rth Carolina,and Virginia, it was commended as securing important
rights, though on this point there was difference of opinion. In the
Virginia Convention, an eminent character, Mr. George Mason, with
others, expressly declared that there was "no security of property
coming within this section." In the other Conventions it was
disregarded. Massachusetts, while exhibiting peculiar sensitiveness at
any responsibility for slavery, seemed to view it with unconcern. One
of her leading statesmen, General Heath, in the debates of the State
Convention, strenuously asserted, that, in ratifying the Constitution,
the people of Massachusetts "would do nothing to hold the blacks in
slavery." "_The Federalist_," in its classification of the powers of
Congress, describes and groups a large number as "those which provide
for the harmony and proper intercourse among the States," and
therein speaks of the power over public records, standing next in the
Constitution to the provision concerning fugitives from service; but it
fails to recognize the latter among the means of promoting "harmony and
proper intercourse;" nor does its triumvirate of authors anywhere allude
to the provision.

The indifference thus far attending this subject still continued. The
earliest Act of Congress, passed in 1793, drew little attention. It was
not suggested originally by any difficulty or anxiety touching fugitives
from service, nor is there any contemporary record, in debate or
otherwise, showing that any special importance was attached to its
provisions in this regard. The attention of Congress was directed to
fugitives from justice, and, with little deliberation, it undertook, in
the same bill, to provide for both cases. In this accidental manner was
legislation on this subject first attempted.

There is no evidence that fugitives were often seized under this Act.
From a competent inquirer we learn that twenty-six years elapsed before
it was successfully enforced in any Free State. It is certain, that, in
a case at Boston, towards the close of the last century, illustrated
by Josiah Quincy as counsel, the crowd about the magistrate, at the
examination, quietly and spontaneously opened a way for the fugitive,
and thus the Act failed to be executed. It is also certain, that, in
Vermont, at the beginning of the century, a Judge of the Supreme Court
of the State, on application for the surrender of an alleged slave,
accompanied by documentary evidence, glori