There were actually two Fugitive Slave Acts.  The first. passed by Congress in 1793 and the second in 1850 (and repealed in 1864). The 1793 law enforced Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution in authorizing any federal district judge to decide without a jury trial the status of an alleged fugitive slave.  The second Fugitive Slave Act went further and stated that not only could fugitives be tried without the benefit of a jury but that they also could not testify on their own behalf.  Penalties were also imposed on anyone who assisted an escape slave and on marshals who did not enforce the law.  They were even fined if the fugitive they had captured later escaped. 

These laws put fugitive slaves at risk for recapture the rest of their lives.  It also classified children born to fugitive slave mothers as slaves and the property of their mother’s master for the rest of their lives.  Many northern states had enacted legislation to protect free black Americans (who could otherwise be abducted, brought before court without the ability to produce a defense, and then lawfully enslaved) as well as runaway slaves. Those laws came to be known as personal liberty laws and required slave owners and fugitive hunters to produce evidence that their captures were truly fugitive slaves, “just as southern states demanded the right to retrieve runaway slaves, northern states demanded the right to protect their free black residents from being kidnapped and sold into servitude in the south.”.

An entire slave-catching industry developed as a result of these Fugitive Slave acts (arguably the genesis for many of the issues with modern policing) and expanded in 1850 as the laws became more onerous.  A system of bounty hunters and rewards for capturing and returning many slaves to their owners fueled by corrupt judges meant that ALL blacks (free or fugitive) were at risk of being kidnapped and taken into slavery.  There were numerous instances of people who were legally free and had never been slaves being captured and brought south to be sold into slavery.

While the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution officially and formally repealed the Fugitive Slave Acts, slavery in the form of prison labor persisted well into the 21^st Century.  The 13^th Amendment explicitly allowed for “involuntary service” as “punishment for a crime.”  This industry of slave catchers now shifted from chasing runaway slaves to creating new slaves by getting people arrested for crimes.  In December 2020 another amendment closing this loophole was proposed but did not achieve the required 2/3 vote to be sent to the states for ratification (opposition was largely drawn on party lines with GOP voting “no”}. 

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