States' rights
The "States' rights" debate cut across the issues. Southerners argued that under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government's powers limited to those specified in the Constitution, and since it could not take away any state's rights, it therefore had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories. States' rights advocates also cited the Fugitive Slave Clause to demand federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North. Anti-slavery forces took opposite stances on these issues. The Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution was the result of compromises between North and South when the Constitution was written. It was later strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Act that was part of the Compromises of 1850. The Southern politician and states' rights advocate John C. Calhoun regarded the territories as the "common property" of sovereign states, and said that Congress was acting merely as the states' agent.