Enacted to implement Article IV, Section 2's Fugitive Slave Clause, the 1793 statute allowed a slaveholder or agent to seize an alleged fugitive in any state, bring the person before a federal or state magistrate, and prove ownership by oral testimony or affidavit — with no jury and no right for the accused to testify. Northern states responded with 'personal liberty laws' guaranteeing jury trials for the accused. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the Supreme Court struck down such state protections as an unconstitutional interference with a federal power. Prigg's holding — and the 1793 Act's inadequacy from a slaveholder's perspective — set the stage for the far harsher Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.