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:
“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)
“It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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)