essay on the fugitive slave act

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Fugitive Slave Acts

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 29, 2023 | Original: December 2, 2009

The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway enslaved people within the territory of the United States. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escapees to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. Widespread resistance to the 1793 law led to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which added more provisions regarding runaways and levied even harsher punishments for interfering in their capture. The Fugitive Slave Acts were among the most controversial laws of the early 19th century.

What Were the Fugitive Slave Acts?

Statutes regarding refugee slaves existed in America as early as 1643 and the New England Confederation, and slave laws were later enacted in several of the 13 original colonies.

Among others, New York passed a 1705 measure designed to prevent runaways from fleeing to Canada, and Virginia and Maryland drafted laws offering bounties for the capture and return of escaped enslaved people.

By the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, many Northern states including Vermont , New Hampshire , Rhode Island , Massachusetts and Connecticut had abolished slavery.

Concerned that these new free states would become safe havens for runaways, Southern politicians saw that the Constitution included a “Fugitive Slave Clause.” This stipulation (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) stated that, “no person held to service or labor” would be released from bondage in the event they escaped to a free state.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Despite the inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the U.S. Constitution, anti-slavery sentiment remained high in the North throughout the late 1780s and early 1790s, and many petitioned Congress to abolish the practice outright.

Bowing to further pressure from Southern lawmakers—who argued the slave debate was driving a wedge between the newly created states—Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.

This edict was similar to the Fugitive Slave Clause in many ways, but included a more detailed description of how the law was to be put into practice. Most importantly, it decreed that owners of enslaved people and their “agents” had the right to search for escapees within the borders of free states.

In the event they captured a suspected runaway, these hunters had to bring them before a judge and provide evidence proving the person was their property. If court officials were satisfied by their proof—which often took the form of a signed affidavit—the owner would be permitted to take custody of the enslaved person and return to their home state. The law also imposed a $500 penalty on any person who helped harbor or conceal escapees.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was immediately met with a firestorm of criticism. Northerners bristled at the idea of turning their states into a stalking ground for bounty hunters, and many argued the law was tantamount to legalized kidnapping. Some abolitionists organized clandestine resistance groups and built complex networks of safe houses to aid enslaved people in their escape to the North.

Refusing to be complicit in the institution of slavery, most Northern states intentionally neglected to enforce the law. Several even passed so-called “Personal Liberty Laws” that gave accused runaways the right to a jury trial and also protected free blacks, many of whom had been abducted by bounty hunters and sold into slavery.

Did you know? The passage of the Fugitive Slave Acts resulted in many free blacks being illegally captured and sold into slavery. One famous case concerned Solomon Northup, a freeborn black musician who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841. Northup would spend 12 years enslaved in Louisiana before winning back his freedom in 1853.

Prigg v. Pennsylvania

The legality of Personal Liberty Laws was eventually challenged in the 1842 Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania . The case concerned Edward Prigg, a Maryland man who was convicted of kidnapping after he captured a suspected slave in Pennsylvania .

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Prigg, setting the precedent that federal law superseded any state measures that attempted to interfere with the Fugitive Slave Act.

Despite decisions like Prigg v. Pennsylvania , the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 remained largely unenforced. By the mid-1800s, thousands of enslaved people had poured into free states via networks like the Underground Railroad.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Following increased pressure from Southern politicians, Congress passed a revised Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.

Part of Henry Clay ’s famed Compromise of 1850—a group of bills that helped quiet early calls for Southern secession—this new law forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaways. It also denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial and increased the penalty for interfering with the rendition process to $1,000 and six months in jail.

In order to ensure the statute was enforced, the 1850 law also placed control of individual cases in the hands of federal commissioners. These agents were paid more for returning a suspected runaway than for freeing them, leading many to argue the law was biased in favor of Southern slaveholders.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was met with even more impassioned criticism and resistance than the earlier measure. States like Vermont and Wisconsin passed new measures intended to bypass and even nullify the law, and abolitionists redoubled their efforts to assist runaways.

The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the 1850s, with many enslaved people fleeing to Canada to escape U.S. jurisdiction.

Resistance also occasionally boiled over into riots and revolts. In 1851 a mob of antislavery activists rushed a Boston courthouse and forcibly liberated an escapee named Shadrach Minkins from federal custody. Similar rescues were later made in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts

Widespread opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 saw the law become virtually unenforceable in certain Northern states, and by 1860 only around 330 enslaved people had been successfully returned to their Southern masters.

Republican and Free Soil congressmen regularly introduced bills and resolutions related to repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, but the law persisted until after the beginning of the Civil War . It wasn’t until June 28, 1864, that both of the Fugitive Slave Acts were repealed by an act of Congress.

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Fugitive Slave Act

Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850.  The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state.  The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States, and Who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offense against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by the virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled "An Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States" shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

And be it further enacted, That the Superior Court of each organized Territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgments of bail and affidavits, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

And be it further enacted, That the Circuit Courts of the United States shall from time to time enlarge the number of the commissioners, with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act.

And be it further enacted, That the commissioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, and the judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, severally and collectively, in term-time and vacation; shall grant certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped or fled.

And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant, or other process, when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such claimant, by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such marshal; and after arrest of such fugitive, by such marshal or his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the provisions of this act, should such fugitive escape, whether with or without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal shall be liable, on his official bond, to be prosecuted for the benefit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped: and the better to enable the said commissioners, when thus appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with authority to such commissioners, or the persons to be appointed by them, to execute process as aforesaid, to summon and call to their aid the bystanders, or posse comitatus of the proper county, when necessary to ensure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be required, as aforesaid, for that purpose; and said warrants shall run, and be executed by said officers, any where in the State within which they are issued.

And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

And be it further enacted, That the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the said District and Territorial Courts, shall be paid, for their services, the like fees as may be allowed for similar services in other cases; and where such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and delivery of the fugitive to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or where such supposed fugitive may be discharged out of custody for the want of sufficient proof as aforesaid, then such fees are to be paid in whole by such claimant, his or her agent or attorney; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, upon the delivery of the said certificate to the claimant, his agent or attorney; or a fee of five dollars in cases where the proof shall not, in the opinion of such commissioner, warrant such certificate and delivery, inclusive of all services incident to such arrest and examination, to be paid, in either case, by the claimant, his or her agent or attorney. The person or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by such commissioner for the arrest and detention of fugitives from service or labor as aforesaid, shall also be entitled to a fee of five dollars each for each person he or they may arrest, and take before any commissioner as aforesaid, at the instance and request of such claimant, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them; such as attending at the examination, keeping the fugitive in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioners; and, in general, for performing such other duties as may be required by such claimant, his or her attorney or agent, or commissioner in the premises, such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and paid by such claimants, their agents or attorneys, whether such supposed fugitives from service or labor be ordered to be delivered to such claimant by the final determination of such commissioner or not.

And be it further enacted, That, upon affidavit made by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will he rescued by force from his or their possession before he can be taken beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent, or attorney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same expenses, as are now allowed by law for transportation of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.

And be it further enacted, That when any person held to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their agent or attorney, may apply to any court of record therein, or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such court, or judge in vacation, of the escape aforesaid, and that the person escaping owed service or labor to such party. Whereupon the court shall cause a record to be made of the matters so proved, and also a general description of the person so escaping, with such convenient certainty as may be; and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the attestation of the clerk and of the seal of the said court, being produced in any other State, Territory, or district in which the person so escaping may be found, and being exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other office, authorized by the law of the United States to cause persons escaping from service or labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such record mentioned. And upon the production by the said party of other and further evidence if necessary, either oral or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained in the said record of the identity of the person escaping, he or she shall be delivered up to the claimant, And the said court, commissioner, judge, or other person authorized by this act to grant certificates to claimants or fugitives, shall, upon the production of the record and other evidences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of his right to take any such person identified and proved to be owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate shall authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and transport such person to the State or Territory from which he escaped: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as requiring the production of a transcript of such record as evidence as aforesaid. But in its absence the claim shall be heard and determined upon other satisfactory proofs, competent in law.

Approved, September 18, 1850.

"A record of the personal services of our American women in the late Civil War"

"what to the slave is the fourth of july" frederick douglass's reflections in 1852.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

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The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 by Carol Wilson LAST REVIEWED: 27 February 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 27 February 2019 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190280024-0067

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, although in effect less than two decades, was one of the nation’s most controversial federal laws. Designed to provide southern slaveholders with greater assistance in the return of runaway slaves, it angered northern whites and blacks, divided communities, and yet still failed to assuage slaveholders’ concerns. Designed to calm sectional tensions as part of the Compromise of 1850, the law propelled the nation closer to war. Both the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 affirmed the rights of slaveholders to claim enslaved people who escaped into free states or territories. But enslaved people continued to seek freedom, and over time the number of those willing to aid them grew, eventually developing into the loosely organized network known as the Underground Railroad. Slaveholders, especially in the Upper South, annually lost an untold number of slaves to escape. Not all freedom-seekers were successful, but the costs were great nonetheless. To slaveholders, every escaped slave who made it North represented a loss of hundreds of dollars, and perhaps more importantly, spurred others to follow in his or her footsteps. Often associated with states’ rights ideology, white southerners demanded and eventually got what some scholars have called the greatest exercise of federal power before the Civil War. The enhanced federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 expanded on the earlier law in several important ways. It created a new position of commissioner who was appointed, not elected, and was paid ten dollars each time he sent an accused fugitive into slavery, only five dollars if he found the claim to be insufficient and ordered the accused released. The act also strengthened the penalties for helping fugitives escape or interfering with rendition; it explicitly stripped all rights from the accused; and stated that bystanders could be called upon to assist in slave recapture. Response to the law varied. Enslaved people continued to escape bondage. Fugitives living in the North and even free blacks felt threatened and organized for self-defense; thousands left for Canada. Abolitionists, black and white, protested in writing and speeches; some engaged in bold rescues of individuals claimed as fugitives. Many white northerners abided by the law, although for others the idea of being turned into de facto slave catchers pushed them toward opposition. Rather than settle the issue of fugitive slaves, the Law served to divide the nation further.

Several works look at the Fugitive Slave Law from a broad perspective, generally including the political background of its creation, ramifications of the law’s implementation, and the success level of enforcement. Gara 1964 examines the Fugitive Slave Act in political context and finds that as a compromise the act was a failure. Campbell 1970 was the first work to systematically analyze the law’s enforcement and has remained a standard in the field. Harrold 2010 is an important recent work that has helped reorient historians away from a traditional northern free/southern slave geography toward a focus on the borderlands where issues of slavery and race were complex and shifting. Churchill 2014 adapts the borderlands concept using an extensive database of fugitive slave rescues. Blackett 2018 provides the best new overview of the topic, what will undoubtedly become the standard work on the subject. He argues that by running away, freedom seekers challenged not only the law, but the entire system of slavery, and helped bring the nation to a reckoning.

Blackett, R. J. M. The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

DOI: 10.1017/9781108275439

One section covers the law’s passage, first year of operation, and its impact on the abolitionist and free black communities, plus the resurgence of the colonization movement. Seven chapters then examine reaction to the law in different areas of the country. Blackett concludes that the law was inadequate, as more enslaved people escaped than were apprehended and returned.

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Law, 1850–1860 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970.

Analyzing the 332 cases reviewed by federal commissioners, Campbell concludes that the Fugitive Slave Act, contrary to southern complaints, was enforced to a great extent, and resulted in a majority of those accused of being returned to slavery. His work has remained the standard on enforcement of the law for decades.

Churchill, Robert H. “Fugitive Slave Rescues in the North.” Ohio Valley History 14 (Summer 2014): 51–75.

A comprehensive examination of fugitive slave rescues, creating a database of 154 cases of which nearly 80 percent were successful. Churchill divides the cases into three regions—free soil (Upper North, where fugitive rendition was systematically challenged), borderland (northern counties adjacent to slave states which saw some rescues but much support for the law), and contested territory (the area in between where opposition to the law grew over time).

Gara, Larry. “The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox.” Civil War History 10.3 (September 1964): 229–240.

DOI: 10.1353/cwh.1964.0000

As part of a political compromise designed to keep the Union together, Gara states, the law failed miserably. He also argues another paradox: that southern whites, generally associated with states’ rights ideology, were willing to call on the power of federal authority when it suited their needs, in this case to restore their human property.

Harrold, Stanley. Border War : Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Focuses on the states of the Lower North and Upper South as a borderland where issues of race and slavery were constantly debated; this was the real proving ground for the Fugitive Slave Act. Harrold concludes that while the act challenged fugitives and their allies, it did not stop escapes; rather, the number increased, as did defiance of the act.

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How The Fugitive Slave Act Ignited A 'Struggle For America's Soul'

Terry Gross

Author Andrew Delbanco says the 1850 law paved the way for the Civil War by endangering the lives of both escaped slaves and free black men and women in the North. His book is The War Before The War.

The War Before the War

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The first amendment, historic document, the fugitive slave act (1850).

Congress | 1850

Part of the so-called congressional “Compromise of 1850,” this second federal Fugitive Slave Act aggressively extended the provisions of the original 1793 Act. Law enforcement officials were required to arrest people suspected of escaping enslavement on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership. The Commissioner before whom the fugitive from slavery was brought for a hearing was compensated $10 if he found that the individual was proven a fugitive, but only $5 if he determined the proof to be insufficient. In addition, any person aiding a fugitive by providing food or shelter was subject to six months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. The Act was broadly condemned in the North and prompted multiple instances of violent resistance. Although the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s power to pass such laws in Prigg v. Pennsylvania , Northern states resisted enforcement of the law on their soil. Wisconsin, for example, invoked the compact theory of the Constitution and insisted it retained the right to “nullify” what they believed was an unconstitutional law.

Selected by

Laura F. Edwards

Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, and Professor of History at Princeton University

E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Richmond

And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due . . . may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner . . .. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months . . . and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

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Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Article by Natasha Henry-Dixon

Updated by The Canadian Encyclopedia

Published Online January 20, 2014

Last Edited June 21, 2023

The Fugitive Slave Act , first passed by the federal government 4 February 1793, gave slaveholders the right to recover escaped enslaved persons. While federal authorities could execute the Act , states were not compelled to enforce it. Many Northern states disregarded the law. Abolitionists in the North circumvented the law through the operation of the Underground Railroad . Some states implemented Personal Liberty Laws to hamper enforcement and gave fugitives the right of trial by jury to appeal decisions ruled against them. In some states, fugitives on trial received legal representation. The new 1850 bill strengthened the enforcement measures of the 1793 version of the Fugitive Slave Act to appease Southern slaveholders who were threatening to secede from the United States in order to protect their interest in enslavement. The Act allowed for the pursuit and capture of enslaved persons anywhere in the United States, including in the Northern states where enslavement had been abolished.

The Act made it illegal for individuals to aid escaping slaves with food, shelter, money or any other forms of assistance at a penalty of up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. Anyone who obstructed federal agents or deputized citizens from recovering fugitives could also be charged. The federal law required that all citizens assist slave owners in capturing their runaway slaves.

Alleged fugitives were denied the right to defend their case with a jury trial. Special federal commissioners were appointed to handle cases. The Act made more federal agents available for enforcement, and agents were compelled to arrest suspected runaway slaves or face a $1,000 fine. To encourage agents to enforce the law, they were entitled to a recovery fee, influencing many to abduct, by any means, Black persons (free or otherwise) and sell them to slave traders or slaveholders. Free Blacks were in jeopardy of being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South without recourse. As a result, many freedom-seekers risked their lives in pursuit of freedom in Canada, where enslavement had been abolished with the 1834 Slavery Abolition Act .

Based on available census figures and documented testimonies, historians have tried to calculate the number of African Americans who entered Canada. While estimates vary, historian Fred Landon approximated that between 1850 and 1860, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 African Americans settled in Canada, increasing the Black population to about 60,000. Many escapees made the dangerous journey on their own, while others received assistance from the Underground Railroad .

Several prominent cases filed under the Fugitive Slave Act ended in Canada. Anthony Burns, a fugitive from Virginia living in Boston, Massachusetts, was arrested and convicted under the Fugitive Slave Act in May 1854. He was sentenced to return to his master in Virginia — a ruling that incited protest among Black and white abolitionists in the city. Following his return to Virginia, he was sold to another slave holder in North Carolina. But within a year, his freedom was purchased with money raised by a Black church he attended in Boston. Burns moved to Ohio and attended Oberlin College, and in 1861 he relocated to St. Catharines , Canada West , where he served as minister for Zion Baptist Church until his death in 1862. Burns was the last person to be tried under the Fugitive Slave Act in Massachusetts.

Shadrach Minkins also escaped enslavement in Virginia and reached Boston in 1850. He was held under the Fugitive Slave Act after federal agents posed as customers at the coffee shop where he was employed and arrested him 15 February 1851. At his trial, Black and white abolitionists of the Boston Vigilance Committee forcibly removed Minkins from the court house and moved him to Montreal by way of the Underground Railroad .

In 1852, a freedom-seeker named Joshua Glover found asylum in Racine, Wisconsin, but was soon tracked down by his owner. While he was detained, a group of abolitionists stormed the jailhouse and helped Glover escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad. He settled in the Toronto area after finding employment with Thomas and William Montgomery in the village of Lambton Mills in York Township (Etobicoke).

Building Communities in Canada West

Black communities developed in Niagara Falls , Buxton, Chatham , Owen Sound , Windsor , Sandwich (now part of Windsor), Hamilton , London and Toronto as well as in other regions of British North America such as New Brunswick and Québec . All of these locations were terminals on the Underground Railroad .

Many African American immigrants wanted to live close to one another for support and for security against slave catchers. The Chatham Vigilance Committee was formed by concerned Black residents in order to protect fugitives from being returned to enslavement in the United States. The Fugitive Slave Act resulted in several illegal attempts to kidnap refugees in Canada and return them to former owners in Southern states. As reported by Mary Ann Shadd Cary in The Provincial Freeman , in September 1858, over 100 armed Black men and women rescued a teenage boy named Sylvanus Demarest when a man who claimed to be his owner put him on a train to take him to the US. They were spotted in London, Canada West, by Elijah Leonard, the former mayor of the town, who asked a Black porter to send a telegraph message ahead to Chatham so that members of the Vigilance Committee could intervene. Demarest was saved. He lived with the Shadd family for a short time before moving to Windsor.

The Fugitive Slave Act sparked the largest migration wave of African Americans into Canada in the 19th century. The self-emancipated men and women who settled in Canada continued to fight against enslavement in the US after their successful flight, and engaged in various abolitionist activities. Many assisted incoming escapees by providing them with food, shelter, clothing and employment. Recently liberated Blacks formed and joined benevolent organizations and anti-slavery societies. Some settlers went on missions across the border to help rescue freedom-seekers and bring them to Canada.

Two anti-slavery newspapers were published in Canada West. Abolitionist Henry Bibb, once enslaved in Kentucky, founded the Voice of the Fugitive in Sandwich (now a suburb of Windsor) in 1851, Canada’s first Black newspaper. The Provincial Freeman was founded in Windsor in 1853 by Samuel Ringgold Ward, another fugitive turned abolitionist, alongside Mary Ann Shadd who took over the editorial role following year. Both newspapers reported on safe arrivals via the Underground Railroad , reported on what was happening in the US in regards to enslavement, and notified the community about potential threats to their freedom. The Black press was also used to mobilize the public against the practice of enslavement and encouraged political activism and community-building initiatives.

In September 1851, members of Canada West’s Black community organized the North American Convention of Coloured People at St. Lawrence Hall . Fifty-three delegates from the United States, England and Canada gathered in Toronto because it was determined that it would be the safest location for a large meeting where the main discussions were the abolition of African American enslavement , improving the quality of life for Blacks in North America, and encouraging enslaved people to run away. The three day convention was chaired by Henry Bibb, J. J. Fisher, Thomas Smallwood and Josiah Henson , all freedom-seekers living in Canada West. The meeting closed with the decision that the best place for people of African descent (those wishing to flee enslavement, as well as free Blacks) to live in North America was Canada, because of its security and promises of freedom and opportunity.

Read More // Enslavement

Black history in canada education guide.

Further Reading

Virginia Hamilton, Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Sl ave (2011).

Ruby West Jackson, and Walter T. McDonald, Finding Freedom : The Untold Story of Joshua Glover , Runaway Slave (2012).

Gary Collison, Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen (1998).

Adrienne Shadd, Afua Cooper, Karolyn Smardz Frost, The Underground Railroad, Next Stop Toronto! (2009).

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

Michael Wayne, “The Black Population of Canada West on the Eve of the American Civil War: A Reassessment Based on the Manuscript Census of 1861,” Histoire Sociale/Social History , vol. 28., no. 56 (1995).

Karolyn Smardz Frost, Bryan Walls, Hilary Bates Neary and Frederick H. Armstrong, eds., Ontario’s African Canadian Heritage: Collected Writings by Fred Landon, 1918-1967 (2009).

External Links

Fugitive Slave Law Historical context for the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 from the Library of Congress in the US.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Full text of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. From the Yale Law School website.

Associated Collections

Black history in canada, recommended, black enslavement in canada, underground railroad, black canadians, slavery abolition act, 1833, black history in canada until 1900, mary ann shadd, the provincial freeman, josiah henson, st lawrence hall, "the book of negroes" and black history education guide, black history.

Thomas Sims and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Written by: Stephen Puleo, Independent Historian

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain how regional differences related to slavery caused tension in the years leading up to the Civil War

Suggested Sequencing

Use this Narrative with The Compromise of 1850 Decision Point for a comprehensive look at the effects of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This can also be used alongside the Fugitive Slave Act, 1850 Primary Source.

In the early morning dampness on Saturday, April 12, 1851, police and federal troops mustered near the weak light of a single gas lamp outside the courthouse in Boston’s city center. More than 100 police officers armed with double-edged Roman swords, plus another 100 volunteers wielding clubs, drilled for more than an hour, their heavy boots clomping upon the dirt-packed street. The police had practiced their formation for several days in preparation for what would happen in the next few minutes.

One of Boston’s most militant abolitionists, the fiery Unitarian minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, described the chill he felt as he watched the troops “marching and countermarching, drawing their cutlasses, and forming up into a horrible hollow square.” Within that hollow square, the troops would soon escort a lone man to the ship that would carry him back to slavery. He was Thomas Sims, a 23-year-old runaway slave from Georgia whom the police had captured nine days earlier. In compliance with the recently strengthened Fugitive Slave Act, part of the controversial sectional Compromise of 1850, the antislavery city of Boston was returning Sims to bondage.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister in Boston, was one of the most outspoken abolitionists during the lead-up to the Civil War.

Boston had always taken pride in its instrumental role in the antislavery movement, but it was not until this embarrassing and shameful event of the city sending a free man in the North back to slavery that its abolitionists began to harden from philosophical opponents of slavery into relentless activists. The bitterness of Sims’s capture, the spectacle of his imprisonment, and their inability to prevent his return galvanized abolitionists and showed them a lesson no victory could teach. It was one that forever changed the slavery debate.

By the time Thomas Sims fled to Boston, the city had been home to a vocal antislavery movement for decades. Transcendentalist writers and Unitarian ministers were passionate abolitionists. Boston’s African American community had become increasingly active since the turn of the nineteenth century, especially through its churches. William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his antislavery newspaper, The Liberator , in 1831 and had continued without interruption for 20 years. Although a broad cross-section of Bostonians still rejected abolition as too radical, the city’s antislavery ardor took shape early.

In the wider nation, regional differences had reached a near-breaking point by 1850. California had just been admitted to the union as a free state, upsetting a fragile balance of 15 slave states and 15 free. Proslavery southerners, already whispering the word “secession,” had demanded concessions in return for a “free California” and forced the Compromise of 1850, whose main component was the toughened Fugitive Slave Act. This act expanded the powers of U.S. commissioners to enforce federal law and attempted to supersede the provisions of state law by requiring northern law enforcement and legal entities to assist slave hunters in the capture, detention, and return of runaways. It also denied accused fugitives a jury trial and the right to testify in their own defense. Boston’s abolitionists were furious about the law, which they viewed as one of the great miscarriages of justice in the country’s history. Many were members of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which helped to protect escaped enslaved persons from slave catchers and became especially active in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act. They were just as outraged that their own senator, Daniel Webster, had played a key role in drafting it and vilified him for it. They feared free blacks as well as runaways would be swept up by the slave catchers and enslaved.

Only a few months before, in mid-February 1851, an escaped slave from Norfolk, Virginia, named Shadrach was captured and arrested in Boston. While he was being held at the courthouse, an angry crowd of mostly African Americans gathered to rescue him. They stormed the courthouse, recovered Shadrach, and helped him flee to Canada to elude the slave catchers.

Yet abolitionists did little more than watch after Sims was captured on April 3. Higginson, who demanded action to free Sims, was disgusted by his colleagues’ unwillingness to respond. He and a handful of others hastily devised a secret scheme that called for Sims to jump to freedom from his third-story jailhouse window onto a pile of thick mattresses below; however, the plot fizzled when authorities, apparently tipped off, ordered workers to install iron bars across the open window on the day of the scheduled escape. But beyond this, most Boston abolitionists took no concrete steps to free Sims. A chagrined Higginson decried their timidity; even Garrison seemed more concerned about “preparing next week’s editorial” than rescuing the man.

Legal efforts failed, too. A Massachusetts judge refused to rule the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. Later, the court issued a certificate attesting that Sims was, indeed, the property of his Georgia slaveholder and identified the former enslaved man as chattel. Despite Sims’s protestations to his lawyer “I will not go back to slavery” the court ordered his return to Savannah.

Thomas Sims’s 1851 case, shown here as a printed transcription, strengthened the contention between the North and the South over slavery.

At 4:15 a.m., as most of the city slept, police officers assembled in the hollow-square formation and marched silently to the east side of the courthouse. Despite the early hour, nearly 200 horrified spectators looked on as the door opened and a tearful Sims appeared. Abolitionists accompanied him and his armed guards down State Street toward the pier, hissing and shouting “Shame!” and “Infamy,” but one witness noted that, even at this point, “no other attempt at disorder was made.”

The entire mass arrived at Long Wharf, where the brig Acorn , its sails unfurled, glimmered in the dawn breaking across Boston Harbor. As Sims was led to Acorn’s deck, a man standing on the wharf cried out: “Sims! Preach liberty to the slaves!” With the last words he uttered in Boston, Sims returned a sharp rebuke to his captors: “And is this Massachusetts liberty?”

Within two minutes, at just after 5:00 a.m., the Acorn was moving toward open sea, transporting its human cargo back to Georgia. Boston abolitionists were further disheartened when they received word one week after the fugitive’s departure that, upon his arrival in Savannah, Sims was whipped with 39 lashes across his bare back in the public square, the penalty for running away. Former slave and prominent black abolitionist Frederick Douglass expressed his fury at the news: “Let the Heavens weep and Hell be merry!”

It did not take long for Sims’s dramatic capture to shift attitudes in Boston and throughout the North. On April 24, two weeks after Sims’s departure, the Massachusetts Legislature elected the vociferous antislavery candidate Charles M. Sumner to the Senate (senators were not yet elected directly by the people). Sumner became one of the country’s most influential abolitionist voices. At the same time, the Massachusetts Senate petitioned Congress (unsuccessfully) to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, calling it “unconstitutional, inhumane, and wicked.”

In the three years after Sims’s return to bondage, Boston abolitionists, still ashamed of the city’s actions, helped more than 300 fugitive slaves avoid recapture, providing them with warnings about kidnappers, as well as money, food, clothing, alibis, and safe passage along the Underground Railroad network.

This 1851 poster warns blacks to be aware of law enforcement officials who could capture them and send them back to slavery.

Boston’s renowned literary community, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa May Alcott, among others, also turned their energies to the cause. Emerson, especially, regretted Boston’s official behavior in the Sims case: “The reverse of what it should have been . . . it should have placed obstruction at every step,” he wrote. In 1852, with the Sims case fresh in his mind, Boston publisher John Jewett released Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in book form. The then-controversial work became the nation’s greatest literary phenomenon of the nineteenth century and profoundly shaped antislavery attitudes in the North.

Boston’s efforts inspired courageous abolitionists in New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to work tirelessly and assume great risk for the antislavery cause. The Sims affair also influenced widespread northern reaction to later events in Boston. In 1854, the city sent its second fugitive slave back to bondage. This time, Higginson and a group of men smashed courthouse doors with axes and stabbed a federal marshal to death in a daring, though unsuccessful, attempt to free runaway Anthony Burns; afterward, as Burns was led away, more than 50,000 Bostonians jammed streets and rooftops in full-throated protest. Things were never the same in Boston or America after the day in 1851 when a hollow square of armed guards marched Thomas Sims back to bondage, an act that ignited a national movement.

Review Questions

1. A strengthened Fugitive Slave Act was one component of the

• Missouri Compromise
• Compromise of 1850
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Homestead Act

2. A vocal antislavery movement developed in Boston because

• the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts had little connection to the development of slavery in the United States
• the free black community, transcendentalist writers, and Unitarian ministers supported abolition
• Boston’s Democratic Party polled an overwhelming majority in national elections
• very few African Americans lived in the Boston area

3. Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 resulted in

• growing northern support for the Democratic Party
• declining political influence of Stephen Douglas
• expansion of female suffrage in the northeastern states
• transformation of abolitionism from philosophical discussion to increased activism

4. What impact did the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act have on escaped enslaved persons and free blacks in the North?

• More escaped enslaved persons and free blacks sought legal protection in northern state courts.
• Only free blacks who assisted runaway slaves could be prosecuted under the provisions of the new law.
• The law denied free blacks and escaped slaves the opportunity for a jury trial and the right to testify in their own defense.
• Little changed for free blacks or escaped slaves, because reaching the northern states guaranteed freedom.

5. Immediate response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act included

• formation of the Free Soil Party
• John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry
• publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• “popular sovereignty” legislation enacted for the Nebraska Territory

6. Changes to the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 were designed to

• placate the South for the loss of the slave/free sectional balance in the Senate with the admission of California as a free state
• counter the widespread popularity of William Lloyd Garrison’s calls for “immediate and uncompensated emancipation”
• demonstrate the growing nationwide belief that slavery was a “positive good”
• diminish the electoral power of the newly created Western states

Free Response Questions

• Explain why the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act were controversial.
• Evaluate the impact of Fugitive Slave Act enforcement on abolitionist activity across the North.

AP Practice Questions

“Sect. 15. Any sheriff, deputy sheriff, jailer, coroner, constable or other officer of this Commonwealth, or the police of any city or town, or any district, county, city or town officer, or any officer or other member of the volunteer militia of this Commonwealth, who shall hereafter arrest, imprison, detain or return, or aid in arresting, imprisoning, detaining or returning, any person for the reason that he is claimed or adjudged to be a fugitive from service or labor, shall be punished by fine not less than one thousand, and not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment in the State Prison for not less than one, nor more than two, years. Sect. 16. The volunteer militia of this Commonwealth shall not act in any manner in the seizure, detention or rendition of any person for the reason that he is claimed or adjudged to be a fugitive from service or labor. . . . Sect. 19. No jail, prison, or other place of confinement belonging to, or used by, either the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or any county therein, shall be used for the detention or imprisonment of any person accused or convicted of any offence created by either of the said acts of congress mentioned . . .”

Chap. 0489 An Act to protect the Rights and Liberties of the People of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1855

1. What was a direct result of the provisions of the act in the excerpt

• Massachusetts provided for gradual emancipation of slaves still living in the state.
• Massachusetts outlawed abolitionist activities.
• Massachusetts refused to enforce provisions of a federal law.
• Massachusetts abolished slavery within its borders.

2. This act was written in response to

• the declaration of war on Mexico
• the Compromise of 1850
• the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• the Dred Scott decision

3. The passage of the act most directly reflects which continuity in American history?

• Protection of private property rights is a government responsibility.
• Different labor systems develop to meet the growing needs of the nation.
• Internal migrations lead to tensions between the native and new populations.
• Reserved powers of the states are balanced against the delegated power of the federal government.

Primary Sources

Bearse, Austin. Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston . Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880.

Emerson, RW. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 2 . Edited by Edward Waldo Emerson. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1904. See Emerson’s May 3, 1851, speech entitled “Address to the Citizens of Concord on the Fugitive Slave Law,” in which he castigated Boston citizens for permitting the arrest of Sims.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. “The Fugitive Slave Epoch.” Cheerful Yesterdays . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898.

Massachusetts Senate no. 51: General court. Joint Special Committee. “Joint Special Committee on So Much of the Governor’s Address as Relates to Slavery and on Petitions Praying to the Legislators to Instruct Their Senators and to Request Representatives in Congress to Endeavor to Procure a Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.” March 24, 1851. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t89g5rc9w

Massachusetts Legislature. “No. 100. Petition of William C. Nell.” House Reports. PrimaryResearch.org . 1851. http://www.primaryresearch.org/bh/show.php?dir=1851house100&file=3

Massachusetts Senate. Document No. 89. April 9, 1851.

Meyer, Howard N, ed. The Magnificent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823-1911 . New York, DaCapo Press, 2000.

Sibley, John Langdon. “Sibley’s Private Journal.” 1882. http://hul.harvard.edu/hvarc/reshelf/sibley.htm

Sumner, Charles. The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, Volume One: 1830-1859 . Edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990.

Suggested Resources

Brooks, Elaine. “Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,” Journal of Negro History 30, No. 3 (July 1945): 311-330.

Delbanco, Andrew. The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War . New York: Penguin, 2018.

Edelstein, Tilden G. Strange Enthusiasm: A Life of Thomas Wentworth Higginson . New York: Atheneum, 1970.

Higginson, Mary Thacher. Thomas Wentworth Higginson: The Story of His Life . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914.

Levy, Leonard W. “Sims Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851,” Journal of Negro History 35, No. 1 (January 1950): 39 74.

Maltz, Earl M. Fugitive Slave on Trial: The Anthony Burns Case and Abolitionist Outrage . Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010.

Mayer, Henry. All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery . New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Civil Rights — The Fugitive Slave Act: a Legal and Moral Dilemma

The Fugitive Slave Act: a Legal and Moral Dilemma

• Categories: American History Civil Rights

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

Words: 857 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

The legal implications of the fugitive slave act, the moral dilemma of the fugitive slave act, the impact of the fugitive slave act.

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The Fugitive Slave Act Historical Essay Sample

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 created a law that helped track down and capture runaway slaves who escaped the north and took them back to their southern owners. The northerners did not like the law because it forced the runaway slaves back into slaves. Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831, led 70 white people to Virginia in an uprising that killed 55 white men, women, and kids, and when white people found out, they were mad at Nat and black people for the cause of the deaths. So they formed a mob and in retaliation, they killed Nat Turner and 200 African Americans. The southern states tightened their slave laws, and as a result of a fear of other revolts going on in the south, more northerners began to support the abolition of slavery. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina voted to secede from the union. After President Abraham Lincoln won, many states left the union. Before there were 32, there were 25 states. At Fort Sumter, President James Buchanan refused to act with force during his last days in office, instead opting to leave the problem to Abraham Lincoln. When Abraham Lincoln was president, he said he would send provisions to the people at Fort Sumter, and at 4 am on April 12, 1861, South Carolina fired upon Fort Sumter and the Civil War began.

The Tariff of 1828 was furiously opposed by the South, and that tariff of 1832 was only slightly changed. The South Carolina legislature established an Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 invalid. As a result, Congress passed the force bill, granting President Andrew Jackson the authority to collect tariffs using military force. South Carolina's Nullification Ordinance was revoked, but the Force Bill was eventually deemed null and void. President Andrew Jackson is quoted as saying, "Be warned, I consider disunion by armed force treason." 

During the 1848 election, Zachary Taylor of the Whig party owned slaves, but he did not fight for the extension of slavery, feeling that keeping the country unified was more essential. Lewis's democratic party endorsed the concept of territorial popular sovereignty. Martin Van Buren, of the Free Soil Party, was a former President. Martin also supported the abolition of slavery in the areas. The reason he might not have won was that he wanted to free the slaves, and the south doesn’t like that. During the 1848 election, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore won. In 1850, Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore died, and his Vice President became President in 1850. 

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was the law that made it easier to track down and capture runaway slaves. This act was made for the slaves that escaped to the North and returned them to their Southern owners. They would get a cash reward to forget them back to their owner and used to be 100 per slave that was brought back. The north did not like the new act, and it was very much resisted by them. The South would go to the north to get the slaves. They probably didn’t want people from the north to find out that they were from the south.

Some of the Kansas-Nebraska Act benefited the north, like Support for a northern transcontinental railroad comes from the south. For example, slavery would be permitted in the Kansas and Nebraska territories based on popular sovereignty. In addition, slavery had previously been prohibited in these regions by the Missouri Compromise. There were lots of Democrats in the north who despised that choice. They battled it, they condemned it, but they couldn't change it. Many anti-slavery Democrats migrated into a new coalition with the emerging Republican Party once it was in place. Once it was in place, one of the preconditions for what would become not just the breakup of a political party, but the breakup of the Union, young people in large numbers came out and joined what became known as the Red Guards.

Two forts controlled by Federal troops now located in the Confederate States of America were the immediate challenge created by the southern state’s secession. South Carolina's Fort Sumter was cut off from federal supplies and troops. During his final days as president, Buchanan declined to use force and instead chose to delegate the matter to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln stated that supplies would be sent to the troops at Ft. Sumter. The Civil War began when South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter at 4 a.m. on April 12, 1861.

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