The federal constitution does provide, however, that "A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled be delivered up to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime " (Art. IV, § 2,¶ 2). The purpose of such provision is that the fugitive may be duly tried and punished. Between foreign governments the return of fugitives from justice fleeing from one country to another may be provided for by treaty. But as the states cannot make treaties with each other, it was proper that, as between states, the matter be regulated by the constitution. It is to be noticed that while it is made the duty of the executive of any state to deliver up a fugitive from justice upon demand of another state, there is no method provided in the constitution by which such duty may be enforced; and though Congress has by statute regulated the matter (1793) it has never taken up the question of a refusal by a state executive to follow out that procedure.

In each state there are statutory provisions with reference to demanding the return of fugitives from justice who have escaped into another state, and for extraditing fugitives found in the state whose return is demanded by the executive authority of another state. It is regarded as proper, however, for the executive upon whom the demand is made for the extradition of a fugitive from justice to inquire into the question whether such person is in fact a fugitive, that is, whether he has come into the state from another state where he is charged with having committed a crime, and until it appears that he is such fugitive, and that he has been in a proper proceeding charged with a crime in the state demanding his return, he will not be delivered up.

The crime for which a fugitive should be returned on proper demand may be any crime under the laws of the state demanding his return, whether it be a crime under the laws of the state from which his return is demanded or not (Kentucky v. Dennison), and the state to which he is returned may put him on trial for any offence which he has committed in that state, though it be a different crime from that for which he has been brought back (Lascelles v. Georgia). Although the constitutional provision does not refer to the territories, Congress has by statute covered such cases of fugitives (Ex parte Reggel).

The succeeding paragraph of the federal constitution relating to persons held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof who have escaped into another, and requiring that such persons shall not be discharged from such service or labor by any laws or regulations of another state, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due, was evidently intended primarily to apply to slaves escaping from one state to another; and fugitive slave laws were passed by Congress in order to make effectual this provision. But since the abolition of slavery throughout the United States by the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, this provision has ceased to have any practical value, though it doubtless applies to apprentices, and perhaps might apply to persons convicted of crime in one state and sentenced to labor as a punishment, but who have subsequently escaped to another state.