The Fugitive Slave Clause, also called the Fugitives From Labor Clause, is the provision in Article Four of the United States Constitution, Section 2, Clause 3, that required slaves who escaped to another state to be returned to the owner in the state from which they escaped. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids slavery, made the clause mostly moot.
Read more about Fugitive Slave Clause: Text, Background, Mootness
Famous quotes containing the words fugitive slave, fugitive, slave and/or clause:
“Is this what all these soldiers, all this training, have been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What should concern Massachusetts is not the Nebraska Bill, nor the Fugitive Slave Bill, but her own slaveholding and servility. Let the State dissolve her union with the slaveholder.... Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as she delays to do her duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him. So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Long ago I added to the true old adage of “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” another clause which, I think, more than any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody’s business is my business.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)