FUGITIVE SLAVE

One who has escaped from the service of his master. 2. The Constitution of the United States, art. 4, s. 2, 3, directs that no person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any laws or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be clue. In practice summary ministerial proceedings are adopted, and not the ordinary course of judicial investigations, to ascertain whether the claim of ownership be established beyond all legal controversy.