Part of the Compromise of 1850 and signed by Millard Fillmore, this statute required federal marshals to enforce slaveholders' claims, compelled Northern citizens to assist in captures under threat of criminal penalty, denied the accused the right to testify or demand a jury trial, and paid commissioners a higher fee for rulings in favor of the claimant than against. The Act enraged the North, radicalized abolitionists, and generated a new wave of personal-liberty laws in the free states. Its enforcement was the constitutional context of Ableman v. Booth (1859), in which the Supreme Court held that state courts could not free a federal prisoner accused of aiding a fugitive. The statute is a benchmark example of federal legislation designed to coerce free states into the machinery of slavery.