Fugitive Slave Laws - Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Congress made a further attempt to address the concerns of slave owners over runaway slaves in 1787 by passing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The law appeared to outlaw slavery, which would have reduced the votes of slave states in Congress, but southern representatives were concerned with economic competition from potential slaveholders in the new territory, and the effects that would have on the prices of staple crops such as tobacco. They correctly predicted that slavery would be permitted south of the Ohio River under the Southwest Ordinance of 1790, and therefore did not view this as a threat to slavery. In terms of the actual law, it did not ban slavery in practice, and it continued almost until the start of the Civil War.

King's phrasing from the 1785 attempt was incorporated in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 when it was enacted on 13 July 1787. Article 6 has the provision for runaway slaves:

Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.