인디애나주의 유괴방지법과 북부 초기 인신자유정치의 발전 = Antikidnapping Laws of Indiana and the Growth of Personal Liberty Politics in the North

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Indiana was established under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which outlawed slavery in the new territories. Indiana constitution still provided the abolition of slavery. However, Indiana was considered “outlying provinces of the empire of slavery” because southern influence and racism were so strong that Indiana adopted the 1807 act as an act “for the establishment of disguised slavery” and passed a black code earlier, following the Ohio policy of trying to prevent black immigration. It seems that Indiana totally failed to develop antislavery movement from the beginning and this is a general scholarly interpretation about antislavery movement in Indiana.
But the interpretation make a serious mistake in that it failed to catch the growth of personal liberty politics in Indiana. Considering that the personal liberty politics was a typical and important antislavery tactic of the Northern free states, it is worthwhile to pay special attention to the growth of personal liberty politics in Indiana. Actually, Indiana developed her personal liberty politics more quickly than those of the other free states. Indiana’s anti-kidnapping laws of 1810 and 1816 represented the growth of personal liberty politics in that they were the prototype or even the advanced form of personal liberty laws.
First, the Indiana anti-kidnapping laws denied the exclusive legislative authority of Congress relating to fugitive slave from labor, developing the legal theory of concurrent power which guaranteed the legality and justification of personal liberty laws. Second, the Indiana anti-kidnapping laws guaranteed a “fair and impartial trial by a jury” which was denied in the federal fugitive slave law of 1793 and, as a result, dismissed the legislative intention of the federal fugitive slave law. Third, the Indiana anti-kidnapping laws were the first explicit refusal to recognize a general right of recaption by self-help alone, which was guaranteed in common law and the Constitution.
All in all, the Indiana anti-kidnapping laws were not simple, passive anti-kidnapping laws dealing with the issue of kidnapping free blacks. Rather, they were the prototype or even the advanced form of personal liberty laws, substantially denying the slaveholders’ property rights in slave. Conclusively, the emergence and growth of personal liberty politics in Indiana were the critical antislavery weapon and asset of the Indiana antislavery movement, defending Indiana’s free state identity in the first 20 years of Indiana history.