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Between 1820 and 1847, Pennsylvania waged a back-and-forth battle against the federal government with a series of laws intended to blunt the effect of the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. Ultimately, in 1850, Pennsylvania lost.
In 1820, the Commonwealth passed the first statute in the United States to prohibit state officials from enforcing the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 as it applied to escaped slaves [An Act to Prevent Kidnapping; Law Book No. XVIII, pg. 24].
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This law made the kidnapping of any Black or mulatto for the purpose of making him or her a slave or indentured servant a felony punishable by a fine of $500 to $2,000 and by seven to 21 years’ imprisonment at hard labor. It also prohibited any alderman or justice of the peace under penalty of fine from exercising jurisdiction or taking cognizance of cases of fugitive slaves under the federal Fugitive Slave Act.
Prompted in part by Maryland’s appeal for Pennsylvania to implement the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Pennsylvania in 1826 passed its own Fugitive Slave Act [Pennsylvania Archives, Ninth Series, VIII, 6417]. While ostensibly designed to assist slaveholders in recovering runaway slaves, the 1826 law actually made recovery virtually impossible. After enactment of the 1826 law, there was virtually no way for a slaveholder to recapture a fugitive slave in Pennsylvania and be safe from prosecution as a kidnapper.
Pennsylvania retreated from its forward movement in 1837 when, in its new state constitution, it repealed that portion of the 1790 Pennsylvania constitution that had given free Blacks the right to vote.
In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court entered the fray and decimated Pennsylvania’s fugitive slave legislation. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania [41 U.S. 539], the court affirmed Congress’ right to legislate on the subject of fugitive slaves, denied states the power to legislate on fugitive slavery because that subject came within exclusive federal jurisdiction, and allowed state governments to decide whether or not their officials would help to execute the federal Fugitive Slave Act.
In response to Prigg, Pennsylvania enacted the Personal Liberty Law of 1847 [Laws of Pennsylvania, 1847]. This law provided sanctions for purchasing or removing free Blacks with the intention of reducing them to slaves; prohibited state officials from accepting jurisdiction over cases arising under the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793; provided penalties for claimants seizing slaves in a violent, tumultuous, and unreasonable manner; repealed the 1780 provision that permitted the temporary residence of slaves in the Commonwealth; and repealed Pennsylvania’s 1826 Fugitive Slave Act.
In exchange for Southern support of California’s admission to the Union as a free state and ending the slave trade in the District of Columbia, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to help the South perpetuate slaveholding. This law created a force of federal commissioners empowered to pursue and return to slaveholders runaway slaves in any state. No statute of limitations applied, so that even those slaves who had been free for many years could be returned.