=Sept. 12.= In the House it was read a first and second time by title. Thompson of Pennsylvania moved to put it on its passage, and moved the previous question, which he refused to withdraw, and which was carried.--_House Journal_, 1289, 1448.
Stevens moved to lay it on the table, but the motion was lost, and the bill was ordered to a third reading.--_House Journal_, 1449.
The bill was passed, 109 to 75.--_House Journal_, 1451-1453; _Globe_, 1807.
It was returned to the Senate.--_Senate Journal_, 627; _Globe_, 1810.
=Sept 14.= The bill was signed by the presiding officer of the Senate.--_Senate Journal_, 629; _Globe_, 1815.
Bill signed by the Speaker of the House.--_House Journal, 1457; Globe, 1812._
=Sept. 16.= Bill sent to the President, and signed by him Sept. 18.--_House Journal, 1472, 1497; Senate Journal, 638, 648._
=31. Second Fugitive Slave Act. [§§ 29, 30.]=
=1850, Sept. 18.= "_An Act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled 'An Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of their Masters,' approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three._
"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States, and who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offence against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled 'An Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States,' shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.
"SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That the Superior Court of each organized Territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgments of bail and affidavits, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.