Georgetown Center for the Constitution

Fugitive Slave Clause

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Article IV

Section 2

Clause 3

Robert J. Kaczorowski, The Tragic Irony of American Federalism: National Sovereignty Versus State Sovereignty in Slavery and in Freedom, 45 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1015 (1997).

Contending that the Fugitive Slave Clause expanded an ancient common law right of property to include property in slaves and elevated it into a new constitutional right that authorized slaveholders to pursue and to recover enslaved people even when they escaped to a state that did not recognize slavery.