The infamous
Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress on September 18, 1850. It was one part of a larger Compromise of 1850 meant to ease
tensions between slave and free states.
It did not work. In fact attempts
at enforcement of the law enraged many northerners who would otherwise have
been content to let slavery be out of sight and mind in the South.
A Fugitive
Slave Law had been in the Federal
statutes since 1793. It was an
enforcement provision for Article 4, Section 2 of the Constitution,
which required the return of runaway slaves and was passed at a time when
slavery was still legal in most states on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. But one by one northern states had abandoned
slavery. Within the next decade the last
slaves set to be freed in some gradual
emancipation plans would be freed.
Many Northern states had fairly sizable populations of Free Blacks. Southern states, however, with the
introduction of a wide spread cotton economy
were more dependent on slavery than ever and the end of the international slave
trade had cut off a supply of fresh bodies from Africa and the Caribbean.
Slavery was not only disappearing in the
North, public opinion was swinging against it, particularly in New England and those states carved
from the old Northwest Territories that
were heavily settled by the New England diaspora. Many states had taken actions to blunt the
enforcement of the 1793 law. Several
states had enacted Personal Liberty Laws
by which a captured Negro could
demand a jury trial where the claimant would have to prove that he or she was
legal property. This was to prevent free
Blacks in the North from being kidnapped and taken south to be sold into
slavery—a common practice among slave chasers.
Other laws forbad state and local official from rendering assistance to
slave chasers or the use of local jails to hold them. This practice was upheld by an 1842 Supreme Court decision, Prigg
v. Pennsylvania, which
essentially gutted enforcement of the 1793 law in much of the North.
Beyond legal barriers, there was growing
popular resistance to Slavery which manifested itself in the network of the Underground Railroad which actively
assisted fleeing slaves to reach either Canada
or settle in relatively safe portions of the North under assumed
identities. In several cities, citizens
actively interfered with slave catchers.
All of this, of course, infuriated the South.
Other issues were also inflaming North/South
tensions, principally whether slavery would be extended in the vast territories
obtained in the Mexican War. The South wanted all of the land opened
to slavery—or failing that something like an extension of the Missouri Compromise line that would
allow territories to the south eventually be admitted to the Union as slave
states. They even hoped to possibly
divide Texas into two or more states
and break off Southern California
somewhere north of Los Angeles. That would give the South and slave
holding Border States control of the Senate,
and by extension the Federal government itself.
Northerners, on the other hand, wanted to
exclude slavery from all newly organized territories and keep Texas and
California unified, with the understanding that California would enter the
Union as a free state, balancing slave holding Texas.
President
Zachary Taylor, a hero of
the Mexican War and himself a Louisiana planter
and slave holder, stood with the North in opposing the extension of
slavery. His Whig party was becoming unraveled over the issue. Senator
Henry Clay of Kentucky, a
borderer state Whig who had long dreamed of the Presidency, set out to craft a
compromise early in the year. But with
the president of his own party in opposition, the compromise fell apart in the
Senate.
When the new session of Congress convened in
March Democrat Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Massachusetts Whig Daniel Webster—Clay’s long time rival for party
leadership—advanced a modified version of Clay’s compromise proposals. It varied from Clay’s failed version mostly
in the disposal of the thorny issue of Texas.
The new version was mostly crafted by Douglas and incorporated the
Democratic platform principle of Popular
Sovereignty—that residents of. Territories should be able to decide
by voting whether or not slavery would be allowed—for the two proposed
Territories carved from Texas claims—Utah
and New Mexico. Mormon controlled Utah would definitely
opt to be a free territory, and everyone knew that it was unlikely that
sparsely populated New Mexico which
was totally unsuitable to a plantation economy, would elect to allow
slavery. California would be admitted to
the Union undivided as a Free State.
Debate was
fierce. Most northern Whigs led by William Steward of New York were bitterly opposed because the package did not include Wilmot Proviso, a long sought provision
that would have permanently banned slavery from territory acquired as a result
of the Mexican War. Even though no new
slave Territories or States were created, the application of the principle of
Popular Sovereignty left the possibility open in the future. They were also outraged by the inclusion of
the Fugitive Slave Act.
On the other
hand Southern firebrands led by John C.
Calhoun were just as voraciously opposed because they did not get the
division of California or any new slave holding Territories. They also had to give up the continuation of
the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, although slavery itself would be preserved there.
Numerous
alternative plans were advanced and beaten back. Douglas and Webster, with the support of
Clay, had to stitch together a Senate majority from Northern Democrats,
moderate Southern Democrats, and Southern Whigs. The opposition was split between to extremes,
Northern Whigs on one hand, and Southern intractable on the other.
The
compromise got a boost when Taylor died suddenly and his Vice President Millard Fillmore ascended to the White House. Fillmore was one of Webster’s few Northern
Whig allies and supported the compromise.
Douglas separated out five separate bills from an original omnibus bill, and carefully crafted
narrow majorities for each, with each bill getting support from a slightly
different combination of forces. It was
precarious, but it worked.
The bills,
passed independently between September 9 and 20 and quickly signed into law by
President Fillmore included:
- The admission of California as a free state.
- The abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
- The organization Territory of New Mexico (including present-day Arizona) and the Territory of Utah under the rule of popular sovereignty.
- The enactment of Fugitive Slave Act requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves.
- Acceptance of Texas’s ceding of much of its western land claims in exchange for of $10 million to pay off its national debt.
Douglas and Webster thought they had crafted a compromise
which saved the union. Instead, they
reaped the whirlwind, especially because of the onerous provisions of the
Fugitive Slave Act.
The Act made any Federal
Marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave
liable to a fine of $1,000. Local law enforcement were required to arrest
anyone suspected of being a runaway slave on no more evidence than a claimant’s
sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury
trial or testify on his or her own behalf. Anyone aiding a runaway slave by
providing food or shelter was subject to a six month imprisonment and a $1,000
fine. Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus or
promotion for their work. Slave owners only needed to supply an affidavit to a
Federal Marshal to capture an escaped slave and since a suspected slave was not
eligible for a trial to prove his status, many free blacks could be conscripted
into slavery.
Outrage in the North, particularly in New England was
fierce. Daniel Webster, the political
hero of the region for more than 40 years, was excoriated as a traitor. The hand of Abolitionists, a previously despised minority, was greatly
strengthened. Some Abolitionists even
contemplated a Northern secession from the union in response to the Act and the
still open possibility of the extension of slavery into new territories. Even Ralph
Waldo Emerson flirted with the idea.
Citizens of Boston
and other towns organized to oppose slave catchers and interfere with their
work in every way possible. Handbills
were circulated warning Free Blacks that the local police were cooperating with
slave catchers under the law.
Politically, the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law
spelled the end of the Whigs as a national party. Northern Whigs swung to the new Free Soil Party and four years later
into the new Republican Party alongside
anti-slavery Northern Democrats.
Southern Whigs were re-absorbed into the Democratic Party from which
most of them had originated. But the
Democrats were riven by sectional conflicts themselves.
Whatever “peace” might have been bought fell apart four
years later as the future of Kansas
turned on the principle of Popular Sovereignty leading to a local civil war as
slave holders and Free Soilers rushed to the territory to attempt to control
the Territorial Government.
From a modern perspective, it is useful to compare the
provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act to the recent Arizona anti-immigration legislation which the right wing would
like to make national. There are many
parallels including requiring local police to act on mere suspicion, and the
denial of detainees of adequate rights to prove their status, thus inevitably
leading to the detention deportation of legal immigrants and even citizen. And citizens aiding suspected illegals would
be criminalized themselves. Which is why
draconian anti-immigration laws may prove just as divisive to the nation as the
Fugitive Slave Act.
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