How the slaveholders, via the government, forced non-slaveholders to subsidize slavery was usually through a few methods-slave patrols, fugitive slave laws, manumission restrictions, and propping up of the slave trade.
A second way governments enforced the subsidization of slavery by the non-slaveholders was through fugitive slave laws.
Slavery survived, not because of technological advancements related to agriculture, but because of the nationalizing Constitution and its fugitive slave clause that socialized enforcement costs and made it harder for slaves to escape.
Obviously, absent fugitive slave laws, it was understood that slavery would be severely weakened.
If slave states were going to join in a stronger union with free states, then national law must require that the free states return escaped slaves.
One obvious question arises whenever discussing slavery: why didn't slaveholders simply free the slaves? While there were many reasons why this was the case, it should be recognized that governments made laws that restricted the voluntary freeing of slaves.
All states except South Carolina made laws to end the Atlantic slave trade unfortunately, this also served as a market restriction that bolstered the domestic slave trade and artificially increased the prices of domestic slaves.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/governments-had-major-role-sustaining-slavery
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