the importation of slaves.[318] The wording was
somewhat different, but the essential provisions were the same.
Coming at such a time, it never had any significance in the slavery
problem in the State, but it is interesting as one of the last vain
efforts of the institution before it was mustered out of the State by
an amendment to the federal constitution, which was passed without the
assent of the State legislature of Kentucky.

No less serious than the question of importation was the problem of
the fugitive slave. This has been treated many times and every
discussion of it has involved much of what transpired in Kentucky or
on its borders. It is not the purpose here to repeat any of that story
because it belongs rather to the anti-slavery field, and, furthermore,
has been recently very well treated by A. E. Martin in his
_Anti-slavery Movement in Kentucky_. We are here concerned with the
legal phase of the fugitive problem as it existed in Kentucky
throughout this period, as an internal question; in the relation
between the State and other States; and between the State and the
federal authorities. In so far as it relates to the law within the
State such a discussion naturally divides itself into two
phases--those measures which affected the fugitive slave himself, and
those which were directed towards conspirators who might have brought
about the escape of slaves. The former group of laws were enacted, for
the most part, in the early days of statehood, for a runaway slave was
a natural evil in any condition of servitude. The latter group of
measures were passed in the later days of the institution when the
anti-slavery propagandists came in from the North, for until then
there were no cases of enticement. A large majority of those who were
placed on trial for conspiracy in the history of slavery in Kentucky
proved to be outsiders who had come into the State after 1835. The
citizens of the commonwealth who were opposed to the institution were
satisfied to confine themselves to mere words advocating the
emancipation of slaves.

The State early adopted the slave code of Virginia in regard to the
treatment of runaway slaves just as it did in regard to the general
legal rights of the bonded Negro but provided more drastic regulations
in 1798. Any person who suspected a Negro of being a runaway slave
could take him before a justice of the peace, and swear to his belief
in the guilt of the accused. Being provided with a