Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 Creates Federal Enforcement Apparatus for Slavery

Congress passes and President George Washington signs the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, federal legislation enforcing the Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2) by authorizing slaveholders and their agents to pursue freedom seekers across state lines and establishing procedures for their capture and return. The law empowers any federal district or circuit court judge, or any state magistrate, to make final determinations on the status of alleged fugitives without jury trials, requiring only that owners provide evidence—often merely a signed affidavit—proving the person is their property. Once satisfied with this minimal proof, judges must permit owners to take custody of the accused and return them to the state from which they allegedly fled. The Act imposes a $500 penalty on anyone who harbors or conceals freedom seekers, transforming assistance to enslaved people seeking liberty into a federal crime.

The legislation emerges from Pennsylvania’s attempt to prosecute Virginians who kidnapped John Davis, a free Black man, demonstrating how disputes over slavery enforcement between states drive federal intervention. When Pennsylvania fails to obtain satisfaction from Virginia, Governor Thomas Mifflin brings the matter to President Washington, who refers it to Congress. The resulting statute converts the entire federal judicial system into an instrument of slavery enforcement, requiring federal judges to participate in returning human beings to bondage based on cursory evidence and without meaningful due process protections for the accused, who cannot testify on their own behalf or present witnesses in many jurisdictions.

The 1793 Act represents early federal institutional capture by slave power, establishing the principle that the national government will actively enforce slavery nationwide regardless of state laws or local sentiment. However, the law provides no federal enforcement mechanism—no federal marshals or agents to capture freedom seekers—forcing slaveholders to rely on “often ineffectual and costly services of slave catchers.” This weakness prompts fierce resistance: northern states pass Personal Liberty Laws granting accused fugitives jury trials and protecting free Blacks from kidnapping (Indiana in 1824, Connecticut in 1828, New York and Vermont in 1840), while Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island forbid state officials from assisting enforcement and refuse use of state jails for detention. The Supreme Court’s 1842 decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania further undermines the Act by ruling that state officials cannot be compelled to participate in fugitive slave enforcement. These enforcement failures lead directly to the far more draconian Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which will create federal commissioners with financial incentives to enslave people and mandatory federal enforcement. The 1793 Act demonstrates how slavery corrupts federal institutions by transforming the judicial system into a property-recovery apparatus where constitutional rights to jury trial and due process are suspended, establishing a precedent where elite economic interests (slaveholders) override fundamental legal protections.