“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall . . . 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.” This is known as the “Fugitive Slave Clause.” Although the word slave is absent, this section clearly means that any enslaved person crossing state lines from a slave state to a free state had to be returned to his or her owner. From the beginning, the Constitution ensured that nowhere in America would be safe for an escaped slave.
