A parallel case was the Fugitive Slave Act. Article IV of the Constitution says that any person held to the service or laborer in any state escaping to another state shall not be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be returned to the one to whom the service or labor is due. This is the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution.

When America passed the fugitive slave law compelling men to catch their fellows more brutally than runaway dogs, Canada, aristocratic, unrepublican Canada, still stretched her arms to those who might reach her. But there is no refuge upon earth for the enslaved sex. Right where we are, there we must dig our trenches, and win or die.

And what this could mean, as illustrated by what happened in 1854, the first real test of the Fugitive Slave Act? There was a slave named Anthony Burns in Virginia who stowed away on board a coastal vessel that then sailed to Boston. And Anthony Burns, who was apparently quite literate but not very smart, wrote a letter to his brother back in Virginia telling him where he was. Well, before Anthony Burns was returned to the State of Virginia, the President, Franklin Pierce, had sent an artillery regiment of marines to Boston. He had federalized the National Guard of Boston. He had 3,000 soldiers surrounding them, making sure that nobody could break the jail and let Anthony Burns out. This was an example of the way in which the federal police power would be used to make sure that slaves were returned to their masters or that slaves couldn’t escape from their masters. So this is the real issue.

Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.

More and more southerners were seeing this fact and trying to get rid of their slaves; there were all kinds of plans for doing this. So many simply freed their slaves that most, if not all, southern legislatures passed Acts forbidding this—Acts intended to compel slave-owners to continue to bear their responsibility for their slave-property, and to prevent an increase of the numbers of untrained, uncontrolled, unfed and unsheltered person at large in those states. To evade these laws slave-owners moved temporarily into ‘free’ territory, freed their salves there, and returned. So laws were passed forbidding this. And laws forbidding such freed slaves to return to the slave States, on penalty arrest, punishment and sale.

DiLorenzo thinks that it is a reflection on Lincoln's anti-slavery character that he supported the Fugitive Slave Act. But the Fugitive Slave Clause is in the Constitution, and Lincoln thought that any refusal to implement the right clearly defined in the Constitution would justify secession. You can't pick and choose which parts of the Constitution you like. Once you do that, then the Constitution is simply, as Jefferson said once, "a blank sheet of paper." Jefferson said that when he was contemplating purchasing Louisiana. And having said that by purchasing it he would make the Constitution a blank sheet of paper, he went ahead and purchased Louisiana.

And Lincoln said that if you believe in the Fugitive Slave Act being required by Article IV, you must also believe that the protection of the slave owner and the territories deserves federal protection; the two arguments were perfectly parallel. Douglas said it didn’t matter how the Supreme Court in the abstract decided the question of slavery in the territories; if the slave owner went to the territory, he had to get local regulations to protect his property.

One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them, Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

Those who think Roman slavery was such a benign institution have not explained why fugitive slaves were a constant problem. Owners did not lightly countenance the loss of valuable property. They regularly used chains, metal collars, and other restraining devices. Slaves who fled were hunted down and returned to irate masters who were keen to inflict a severe retribution.

[A]bsent Lincoln's proclamation, not a single fugitive slave would ever be other than a fugitive, rather than a legally free man.

And Lincoln said that by your own argument, if the local regulations are not forthcoming, you must support the federal enforcement; if you don’t, you’re taking the same position as the abolitionists, who denied any obligation to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.

I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor general welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the African slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave code. We must prevent each of these things being done by either Congresses or courts. The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

“The law” became a convenient tool to be used by illegal masters when black people sought to move.

“The law” became a convenient tool to be used by illegal masters when black people sought to move.