An Act Further to Protect Personal Liberty

An Act further to protect Personal Liberty.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

Sect. 1. No judge of any court of record of this Commonwealth, and no justice of the peace, shall hereafter take cognizance or grant a certificate in cases that may arise under the third section of an act of Congress, passed February twelfth, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and entitled "an Act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters," to any person who claims any other person as a fugitive slave within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.

Sect. 2. No sheriff, deputy-sheriff, coroner, constable, jailer, or other officer of this Commonwealth, shall hereafter arrest or detain, or aid in the arrest or detention or imprisonment in any jail or other building belonging to this Commonwealth, or to any county, city or town thereof, of any person for the reason that he is claimed as a fugitive slave.

Sect. 3. Any justice of the peace, sheriff, deputy-sheriff, coroner, constable, or jailer, who shall offend against the provisions of this law, by in any way acting directly or indirectly under the power conferred by the third section of the act of Congress, afore-mentioned, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars for every such offence, to the use of the county where said offence is committed, or shall be subject to imprisonment not exceeding one year in the county jail.

[Approved by the Governor, March 24,1843.]