section 3.: The Commissioners, authorized by the Act of 1850, are not Constitutional Tribunals for the performance of the duties assigned them.

The office of the Commissioners, in delivering up fugitive slaves, is a judicial office. They are to try “suits at common law,” within the meaning of the constitution, as has just been shown. They are to give, not only judgment, but final judgment, in questions both of property, and personal liberty—(of property, on the part of the complainant, and of liberty, on the part of the alleged slave.) Indeed, the Supreme Court have decided that the office of delivering up fugitive slaves is a judicial one. Say they,

“It is plain, then, that where a claim is made by the owner, out of possession, for the delivery of a slave, it must be made, if at all, against some other person; and inasmuch as the right is a right of property, capable of being recognized and asserted by proceedings before a court of justice, between parties adverse to each other, it constitutes, in the strictest sense, a controversy between the parties, and a case arising under the constitution of the United States; within the express delegation of judicial power given by that instrument.”—Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 616.

These Commissioners, therefore, are “judges,” within the meaning of that term, as used in the constitution. And being Edition: current; Page: [10] judges, they necessarily come within that clause of the constitution, (Art. 3, Sec. 1,) which provides that “The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.”

The object of this provision of the constitution, in requiring that all “judges” shall receive a fixed salary, or “a compensation, at stated times,” instead of receiving their pay in the shape of fees in each case—thus making its aggregate amount contingent upon the number of cases they may try—was to secure their impartiality and integrity, as between the parties whose causes should come before them. If a judge were to receive his compensation in the shape of fees for each case, he would have a pecuniary inducement to give a case to the plaintiff, without regard to its merits. And for these reasons. Plaintiffs have the privilege of selecting their own tribunals. If a particular judge be known as uniformly or usually giving cases to plaintiffs, he thereby induces plaintiffs to bring their cases before him, in preference to other tribunals. He thus tries a larger number of cases, and of course obtains a larger amount of fees, than he would if he were to decide impartially. He thus induces also the institution of a larger number of suits than would otherwise be instituted, because if plaintiffs are sure, or have a reasonable probability, of gaining their causes, without regard to their merits, they will of course bring many groundless and unjust suits, which otherwise they would not bring.

It is obvious, therefore, that the payment of judges by the way of fees for each case, has a direct tendency to induce corrupt decisions, and destroy impartiality in the administration of justice. And the constitution—by requiring imperatively that judges “shall receive” a fixed salary, or “a compensation at stated times,” has in reality provided that the rights of no man, whether of property or liberty, shall ever be adjudicated by a judge, who is liable to be influenced by the Edition: current; Page: [11] pecuniary temptation to injustice, which is here guarded against.

The legal objection I now make is not that the Commissioners or judges are paid double fees for deciding against liberty, or for deciding in favor of the plaintiffs—(a provision more infamous probably, for the pay of the judiciary, than was ever before placed upon a human statute book)—but it is that they are paid in fees at all; that they receive no “compensation at stated times,” as required by the constitution; that their pay is contingent upon the number of cases they can procure to be brought before them; in other words, contingent upon the inducements, which, by their known practice, they may offer to the claimants of slaves to bring their cases before them.

The argument on this point, then, is, that inasmuch as the constitution imperatively requires that “judges shall receive, at stated times, a compensation for their services,” and inasmuch as the Act of 1850 makes no provision for paying these Commissioners any “compensation at stated times,” they are not constitutional tribunals, and consequently, have no authority to act as judges or commissioners in execution of the law; and their acts and decisions are of necessity binding upon nobody. In short, a Commissioner, instead of being one of the judges of the United States, paid by the United States, is, in law, a mere hired kidnapper, employed and paid by the slave-hunter—and every body has a right to treat him and his decisions accordingly.*

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