The Fugitive Slave Act: Most Hated Part of the 1850 Compromise

 

The Fugitive Slave Act passed by the U.S. Congress in the decade before the Civil War was part of Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850. Although fugitive slave laws had been in force since the founding of the Republic, the 1850 Act, amended by Senator Mason of Virginia, represented a major shift in federal policy. The 1850 measure enlisted Northern citizens in the process of returning fugitive slaves, imposing severe penalties on those that refused as well as Northerners assisting runaways. Although only 332 fugitive slaves were returned to the South in the ten year period following passage of this Act, the Northern public “would need the raw meat of personal and emotional scenes…” to oppose the measure, according to University of Virginia historian William Lee Miller.

 

Formulating the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Since the institution was founded, there had always been run-away slaves and fugitive slave laws. By the 1850s, however, the South was losing approximately 1,000 slaves each year, most from the Border States. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was designed to strengthen previous measures at the expense of the legal system. According to historian William W. Freehling, “James Mason would deploy federal power deep inside Yankee neighborhoods, with white Northerners legally compelled to perform undemocratic process.”

 

Stipulations of the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Under the Act, any designated agent of the Southern owner could identify fugitive slaves and bring them before court appointed commissioners. Bystanders could be legally compelled to assist in the capture of fugitives or face penalties. Those assisting fugitive slaves could be fined and imprisoned. There was no right under habeas corpus: no jury, witnesses, and the fugitive could not speak in his own defense.

 

Finally, the Fugitive Slave Act was ex post facto, meaning that it affected all existing fugitives living in the North. Historian Page Smith quotes George Templeton Strong who questioned the sanity of sending thousands of Northern blacks – many of whom were citizens, back to the South. If successful, their renewed presence in the South would galvanize insurrection and resistance.

 

Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Only 332 fugitive slaves were returned to the South between 1850 and 1860 in what Page Smith called, “the most misconceived piece of legislation ever promoted by Southern members of Congress.” During that same period, Harriet Tubman alone led 300 slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Even Deep South Senators questioned the intended effects of the law. Florida Senator David Yulee noted that the Act would be “unenforceable in the North.”

 

At issue was a significant loss of assets, notably in the Border States, since slaves were viewed as property. Maryland Senator Pratt attempted to include a compensation amendment to the Act whereby slave owners would be compensated for unreturned slaves out of the federal treasury. The Pratt Amendment, however, was defeated and with help from Deep South Senators who viewed the amendment as the first step toward gradual emancipation.

 

Northern Response to the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Efforts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act resulted in a tremendous public relations blunder for the South. It would be one thing to read about the evils of slavery in publications like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But the real life images of men and women being dragged away were quite a different matter and provided sympathy for a growing abolitionist movement in the North. In Boston alone, the manpower required to return one slave in the face of massive public resistance cost the federal government $100,000 (according to Page Smith).

 

The Fugitive Slave Act further deepened tensions between the North and the South. Northern resistance to the Act, verging on nullification, brought renewed threats of secession from the South. This measure was one more example of how Southern slavery contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War in early 1861.

 

References:

 

Eric Foner, Free Soil, FreeLabor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1995)

William W. Freehling, Rge Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990)

Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (W.W. Norton & Company, 1978)

William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published April 10, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright