1776-1820---The First Federal Fugitive Slave Law (1793)

FEBRUARY 12, 1793:          

The first Federal Fugitive Slave Law is enacted by Congress and signed by President Washington, stating that escaped slaves who are recaptured shall be brought up before a Magistrate for a Hearing on the matter, and (if found to have, in fact escaped), shall be returned to their owners. 

Although there is a Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution as originally written, there is no enforcement mechanism, and handling escaped slaves had been left up to the individual States.  

No longer. This Federal law now applies in every State. Under this law, besides escaped slaves, hundreds of freeborn and freed blacks were seized by money-hungry slave catchers and “returned” to slavery. 

Slave owners felt the law did not go far enough: If the matter was not concluded within six months the presumptive slave would be freed. 

Anti-slavery advocates thought it went too far: Children born to escaped slaves were likewise considered slaves, and manumission was disallowed. 

  

And although the Northwest Territory was no haven under the law, Congress did not address the conflict of laws with the Northwest Ordinance which stated that slavery was banned in the Territory and in any States created from it.