Transit Cases and Personal Liberty Laws

Commonwealth v. Aves – Massachusetts, 1836 (18 Pick. 193); Jackson v. Bulloch – Connecticut, 1837 (12 Conn. 38); In re Sims – Massachusetts, 1851 (61 Mass. 285); Opinion of the Justices – Maine, 1861 (46 Me. 567)

• New England judges, like their colleagues in most other regions, drew a line between “fugitive cases” involving resistance to federal efforts to capture fugitive slaves, and “transit cases” raising the issue of whether slaves passing through New England automatically became free when they entered the region.  In Aves, New England’s leading transit case, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw rejected arguments that Massachusetts should respect property rights in slaves conferred by Southern law.  He reasoned that slavery was so deeply contrary to Massachusetts law and policy that traditional rules of comity between states did not apply. 

• Aves attracted national attention and was highly influential in other northern states.  In Jackson, Connecticut’s supreme court adopted the Aves rule soon after it was created – but did so only narrowly, by a 3-2 vote.  All of the judges noted that Connecticut, unlike Massachusetts, had provided only for gradual emancipation; the dissenters concluded, albeit with real reluctance, that because of that policy Connecticut should not free slaves in transit.

• But in Sims, New England’s leading fugitive case, Shaw had no trouble holding that Massachusetts was obligated to bow to the federal 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which required local officials to help federal authorities capture slaves and respect federal procedures (much more summary than most New Englanders wanted) for returning slaves.  Shaw valued preservation of the Union far more than he hated slavery.  

• In 1857 Maine’s legislature, like several other northern states, enacted a personal liberty law prohibiting local officials from helping federal officials recapture fugitive slaves notwithstanding the Fugitive Slave Law.  On the eve of the Civil War, the legislature asked the supreme court to opine whether the law was constitutional.  One judge replied that Maine was obligated to honor Fugitive Slave Act, but three other judges disagreed.  John Appleton, one of the court’s most respected members, argued that the federal government infringed state rights by imposing duties on state officials, although he conceded Congress could impose such a duty on private citizens.  Only one other state (Wisconsin) witnessed such a judicial rebellion against the Act.  The Civil War and emancipation soon rendered both rebellions moot.
  

Fanueil Hall, Boston, site of many antislavery
rallies and speeches (1851) - courtesy Wikimedia Commons