And, not to multiply proof, the importation of persons is not to be prohibited by Congress prior to 1808. On the 2d day of March, 1807, President Jefferson approved (Stat. 1807, c. 77) "An Act to prohibit the importation of _slaves_ into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the _first day of January_, in the year of our Lord _one thousand eight hundred and eight_." That is, at the very earliest day allowed by Const. Art. 1, sec. 9, for the passage by Congress of an Act prohibiting the importation of persons, a law is passed totally prohibiting the _importation of slaves_.
RESTORATION OF FUGITIVE SLAVES. (Const. Art. 4, sec. 2.)
On the 12th day of February, 1793 (Stat. 1793, chap. 7), there was approved "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters." This is the law which, for over half a century, has prescribed the modes in which a runaway slave may be retaken. It is what is now called "the infamous law of '93." Thousands of runaway slaves have owed their return to their happy condition to the beneficent operation of this law, obviously framed, as it is, with an eye to this constitutional provision.
"When a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the territories on the north-west or south of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said States or territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the State, or before any magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made; and, upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit, taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such State or territory, that the person so seized or arrested doth, under the laws of the State or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor to the State or territory from which he or she fled."