Some Northern states passed "personal liberty laws", mandating a jury trial before alleged fugitive slaves could be moved.

Among the resolutions were a condemnation of Northern personal liberty laws and an assertion of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law.

He supported personal liberty laws.

Several northern states passed new personal liberty laws in defiance of the South's efforts to have slaves captured and returned.

In 1860 Washburn joined in public calls for the repeal of the state's personal liberty laws.

The Court found that Pennsylvania's personal liberty law was unconstitutional because it conflicted with the Constitution's fugitive slave clause.

The personal liberty laws were laws passed by several U.S. states in the North to counter the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850.

It generated a wave of "personal liberty" laws to protect free blacks from slave catchers and to impede state officials from enforcing federal law.

That all state laws which impeded the operation of fugitive slave laws, the so-called "Personal liberty laws," were unconstitutional and should be repealed.

The trial dealt with the issue of Personal liberty laws in the North and the fugitive slave crisis.