.svg) | |
| Long title | An Act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled "An Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of their Masters", approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. |
|---|---|
| Enacted by | the31st United States Congress |
| Citations | |
| Public law | Pub. L. 31–60 |
| Statutes at Large | 9 Stat. 462 |
| Legislative history | |
| |
| Major amendments | |
| Repealed by Act of June 28, 1864, 13 Stat. 200 | |
TheFugitive Slave Act orFugitive Slave Law was astatute passed by the31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850,[1] as part of theCompromise of 1850 betweenSoutherninterests in slavery andNorthernFree-Soilers.
The Act was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of aslave power conspiracy. It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the slave-owner and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate.[2] The Act contributed to the growing polarization of the country over the issue of slavery. It was one of the factors that led to the founding of theRepublican Party and the start of theAmerican Civil War.[3]
By 1843, several hundred enslaved people per year escaped to the North successfully, making slavery an unstable institution in theborder states.[2][page needed]
The earlierFugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a federal law that was written with the intent to enforceArticle 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which required the return of escaped slaves. It sought to force the authorities in free states to return fugitive slaves to their enslavers.
Many free states wanted to disregard the Fugitive Slave Act. Some jurisdictions passedpersonal liberty laws, mandating a jury trial before alleged fugitive slaves could be moved, while others forbade the use of local jails or the assistance of state officials in arresting or returning fugitive slaves. In some cases, juriesrefused to convict individuals who had been indicted under the federal law.[4]
TheMissouri Supreme Court routinely held that enslaved people who had been relocated into neighboring free states along with their enslavers gained their freedom as a result.[5] The 1793 act dealt with slaves who escaped to free states without their enslavers' consent. TheSupreme Court of the United States ruled inPrigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) that states were not required to aid in the hunting or recapture of slaves, significantly weakening the law of 1793.
After 1840, the Black population ofCass County, Michigan, proliferated as families were attracted by White defiance of discriminatory laws, by numerous highly supportive Quakers, and by low-priced land. Free and escaping Blacks found Cass County a haven. Their good fortune attracted the attention of Southern slavers. In 1847 and 1849, planters fromBourbon andBoone Counties, Kentucky, ledraids into Cass County to recapture escaped slaves. The attacks failed, but the situation contributed to Southern demands in 1850 to pass a strengthened fugitive-slave act.[6]
Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of people escaping enslavement, blaming the escapes on Northern abolitionists, whom they believed to be inciting their allegedly happy slaves and interfering with Southern property rights. According to theColumbusEnquirer of 1850, the support from Northerners for fugitive slaves caused more ill will between the North and the South than did all the other causes combined.[7]: 6
.jpg)
In response to the weakening of the original Fugitive Slave Act, Democratic senatorJames M. Mason of Virginia drafted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which penalized officials who did not arrest fugitive slaves and made them liable to a fine of $1,000 (equivalent to $37,800 in 2024). Law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest suspected escaped slaves on as little as aclaimant's sworn testimony of ownership.Habeas corpus was declared irrelevant. The commissioners before whom the alleged fugitive slaves were brought for a hearing (no jury was permitted, and the slaves could not testify[8]) were compensated $10 (equivalent to $380 in 2024) if the subject was proven to be a fugitive and only $5 (equivalent to $190 in 2024) if he determined the proof to be insufficient.[9] In addition, any person aiding a fugitive by providing food or shelter was subject to as long as six months of imprisonment and a fine as high as $1,000. Officers who captured fugitive slaves were entitled to bonuses or promotions for their work.
Enslavers needed only to supply anaffidavit to a federal marshal to capture a fugitive from slavery. Since a suspected enslaved person was not eligible for a trial, the law resulted in the kidnapping and conscription of free Blacks into slavery, as purported fugitive slaves had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations.[10]
The act adversely affected the prospects of escape from slavery, particularly in states close to the North. One study finds that while slave prices rose across the South in the years after 1850, it appears that "the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act increased prices in border states by 15% to 30% more than in states further south", illustrating how the act altered the chance of successful escape.[11]
According to abolitionistJohn Brown, even in the supposedly safe refuge ofSpringfield, Massachusetts, "some of them are so alarmed that they tell me that they cannot sleep on account of either them or their wives and children. I can only say I think I have been enabled to do something to revive their broken spirits. I want all my family to imagine themselves in the same dreadful condition."[12]
In 1855, theWisconsin Supreme Court became the only state high court to declare the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional as a result of a case involving fugitive slaveJoshua Glover andSherman Booth, who led efforts that thwarted Glover's recapture. In 1859 inAbleman v. Booth, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled the state court.[13]
Jury nullification occurred as Northern juries acquitted men accused of violating the law. Secretary of stateDaniel Webster was a key supporter of the law, as expressed in his famous "Seventh of March" speech, who wanted high-profile convictions. The jury nullifications ruined Webster's presidential aspirations and his last-ditch efforts to find a compromise between North and South. Webster led the prosecution against men accused of rescuingShadrach Minkins in 1851 from Boston officials who intended to return Minkins to slavery; the juries convicted none of the men. Webster sought to enforce a law that was extremely unpopular in the North, and hisWhig Party rejected him again when it chose a presidential nominee in 1852.[14]
In November 1850, the Vermont legislature passed the Habeas Corpus Law, requiring Vermont judicial and law enforcement officials to assist captured fugitive slaves. It also established a state judicial process, parallel to the federal process, for people accused of being fugitive slaves. This law rendered the federal Fugitive Slave Act effectively unenforceable in Vermont and caused a storm of controversy nationally. It was considered anullification of federal law, a concept popular among slave states that wanted to nullify other aspects of federal law, and was part of highly charged debates over slavery. Noted poet and abolitionistJohn Greenleaf Whittier had called for such laws, and the Whittier controversy heightened pro-slavery reactions to the Vermont law. Virginia governorJohn B. Floyd warned that nullification could push the South toward secession. At the same time, PresidentMillard Fillmore threatened to use the army to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in Vermont. No test events took place in Vermont, but the rhetoric of the incident echoed South Carolina's 1832nullification crisis and Thomas Jefferson's 1798Kentucky Resolutions.[15]
In February 1855, theMichiganlegislature passed a law prohibiting county jails from being used to detain recaptured slaves, directing county prosecutors to defend recaptured slaves and entitling recaptured slaves tohabeas corpus andtrial by jury.[16] Other states to pass personal liberty laws includeConnecticut,Massachusetts,Maine,New Hampshire,Ohio,Pennsylvania andWisconsin.
The Fugitive Slave Law brought the issue home to anti-slavery citizens in the North, as it made them and their institutions responsible for enforcing slavery. "Where before many in the North had little or no opinions or feelings on slavery, this law seemed to demand their direct assent to the practice of human bondage, and it galvanized Northern sentiments against slavery."[17] Moderate abolitionists were faced with the immediate choice of defying what they believed to be an unjust law or breaking with their consciences and beliefs.Harriet Beecher Stowe wroteUncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in response to the law.[18]: 1 [19][20]
Many abolitionists openly defied the law. ReverendLuther Lee, pastor of theWesleyan Methodist Church ofSyracuse, New York, wrote in 1855:
I never would obey it. I had assisted thirty slaves to escape to Canada during the last month. If the authorities wanted anything of me, my residence was at 39 Onondaga Street. I would admit that and they could take me and lock me up in the Penitentiary on the hill; but if they did such a foolish thing as that I had friends enough inOnondaga County to level it to the ground before the next morning.[21]
Several years before, in theJerry Rescue, Syracuse abolitionists freed by force a fugitive slave who was to be sent back to the South and successfully smuggled him to Canada.[22]Thomas Sims andAnthony Burns were both captured fugitives who were part of unsuccessful attempts by opponents of the Fugitive Slave Law to use force to free them.[23] Other famous examples includeShadrach Minkins in 1851 andLucy Bagby in 1861, whose forcible return has been cited by historians as important and "allegorical".[24] Pittsburgh abolitionists organized groups whose purpose was the seizure and release of any enslaved person passing through the city, as in the case of a free Black servant of the Slaymaker family, erroneously the subject of a rescue by Black waiters in a hotel dining room.[8] If fugitives from slavery were captured and put on trial, abolitionists worked to defend them in trial, and if by chance the recaptured person had their freedom put up for a price, abolitionists worked to pay to free them.[25] Other opponents, such as African-American leaderHarriet Tubman, treated the law as just another complication in their activities.
In April 1859, a putative freeman named Daniel Webster was arrested inHarrisburg, Pennsylvania, alleged to be Daniel Dangerfield, an escaped slave fromLoudoun County, Virginia. At a hearing in Philadelphia, federal commissioner J. Cooke Longstreth ordered Webster's release, arguing the claimants had not proved that he was Dangerfield. Webster promptly left for Canada.[26][27][28][29]
One important consequence was that Canada, not the Northern free states, became the foremost destination for escaped slaves. The Black population of Canada increased from 40,000 to 60,000 between 1850 and 1860, and many reached freedom by theUnderground Railroad.[30] Notable Black publishers, such asHenry Bibb andMary Ann Shadd, created publications encouraging emigration to Canada. By 1855, an estimated 3,500 people among Canada's Black population were fugitives from American slavery.[25] In Pittsburgh, for example, during the September following the passage of the law, organized groups of escaped slaves, armed and sworn to "die rather than be taken back into slavery", set out for Canada, with more than 200 men leaving by the end of the month.[8] The Black population in New York City dropped by almost 2,000 from 1850 to 1855.[25]
On the other hand, many Northern businessmen supported the law due to their commercial ties with the Southern states. They founded the Union Safety Committee and raised thousands of dollars to promote their cause, which gained sway, particularly in New York City, and caused public opinion to shift somewhat towards supporting the law.[25]
In the early stages of theAmerican Civil War, the Union had no established policy on people escaping from slavery. Many enslaved people left their plantations heading for Union lines. Still, in the early stages of the war, fugitives from slavery were often returned by Union forces to their enslavers.[31] GeneralBenjamin Butler and some other Union generals, however, refused to recapture fugitives under the law because theUnion and theConfederacy were at war. He confiscated enslaved people ascontraband of war and set them free, with the justification that the loss of labor would also damage the Confederacy.[32]Lincoln allowed Butler to continue his policy but countermanded broader directives issued by other Union commanders that freed all enslaved people in places under their control.[31]
In August 1861, the U.S. Congress enacted theConfiscation Act of 1861, which barred enslavers from re-enslaving captured fugitives who were forced to aid or abet the insurrection.[31] The legislation, sponsored byLyman Trumbull, was passed on a near-unanimous vote and established military emancipation as official Union policy, but applied only to enslaved people used by rebel enslavers to support the Confederate cause, creating a limited exception to the Fugitive Slave Act.[33]Union Army forces sometimes returned fugitives from slavery to enslavers until March 1862, when Congress enacted the Confiscation Act of 1862, Section 10 of which barred Union officers from returning slaves to their owners on pain of dismissal from the service.[31][33]James Mitchell Ashley proposed legislation to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, but the bill did not make it out of committee in 1863.[33] Although the Union policy of confiscation and military emancipation had effectively superseded the operation of the Fugitive Slave Act,[33][34] the Fugitive Slave Act was only formally repealed in June 1864.[34] TheNew York Tribune hailed the repeal, writing: "The blood-red stain that has blotted the statute-book of the Republic is wiped out forever."[34]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Missouri courts on a number of occasions had granted freedom to slaves whose owners had taken them for long periods of residence in free states or territories
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
| |
| Life | |
| Presidency | |
| Public image | |
| Family |
|
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
