Different laws did this in different ways, including allowing jury trials for escaped slaves and forbidding state authorities from cooperating in their capture and return.
States with personal liberty laws included Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Vermont.
The personal liberty laws were a series of legislative acts that were implemented in the United States between the 1800s and the beginning of the Civil War.
The Personal Liberty Laws were designed to make the legal system more fair for all people and to ensure the safety of freedmen and escaped slaves without employing the controversial tactic of nullification.
Only two states, New Jersey and California, gave direct official sanction or assistance to the forced return of fugitive slaves, but Indiana, Illinois and Oregon did so indirectly, by prohibiting the entrance within their borders of black people either slave or free[clarification needed].
[5] The Personal Liberty Laws sought also to protect the rights of those who didn't want to turn in escaped slaves.
The case between Edward Prigg and Margret Morgan demonstrated one of the complications that arose out of the fugitive slave laws.
After her former owner's death, Ashmore's heirs hired Edward Prigg, a slave catcher, to go to Pennsylvania and bring Margret Morgan, and her children, back with him to Maryland.
Consequently, Pennsylvania had exceeded its authority when it criminalized the conduct done pursuant to federal law for which the Commonwealth had convicted Prigg.
Because most of the abolitionists and supporters of the Personal Liberty Laws resided in the northern states, the controversy added to the already growing rift between the two halves of the country.