Fugitive Slave Act

11 – THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

Fugitive Slave Act

Approved by Congress

Date: September 18, 1850

Explanation of the Source:

The Fugitive Slave Act in the Compromise of 1850, was a stricter version of an older law with the same

premise. A person can recapture a slave and bring them back into slavery. The advancement under the

Compromise of 1850 deals with those who are helping that slave. If you were seen aiding that slave in any

way, then you can be found liable, and will be punished.

“1. 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…

… 6. 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.

7. 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

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Approved by Congress

Date: September 18, 1850

Explanation of the Source: The Fugitive Slave Act in the Compromise of 1850, was a stricter version of an older law with the same premise. A person can recapture a slave and bring them back into slavery. The advancement under the Compromise of 1850 deals with those who are helping that slave. If you were seen aiding that slave in any way, then you can be found liable, and will be punished.

“1. 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…

… 6. 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…”

Letter to American Slaves

By: Frederick Douglass

Date: August 18, 1850

Explanation of the Source: In the summer of 1850, as Congress was debating a new and harsher fugitive slave law, abolitionists gathered in the upstate New York town of Cazenovia to take action against the Compromise of 1850. Attendance was so high ⎯ over two thousand people including about fifty fugitive slaves ⎯ that the main session was held in an apple orchard. The convention adopted this “Letter to the American Slaves”, which was read aloud in Congress. On September 18, 1850, a month after the convention, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act.

“Afflicted and beloved Brothers: — The meeting which sends you this letter, is a meeting of runaway slaves. We thought it well that they who had once suffered as you still suffer, that they who had once drank of that bitterest of all bitter cups which you are still compelled to drink of, should come together for the purpose of making a communication to you. The chief object of this meeting is to tell you what circumstances we find ourselves in — that so you may be able to judge for yourselves whether the prize we have obtained is worth the peril of the attempt to obtain it. The heartless pirates who compelled us to call them “master” sought to persuade us, as such pirates seek to persuade you, that the condition of those who escape from their clutches is thereby made worse instead of better. We confess that we had our fears that this might be so. Indeed, so great was our ignorance that we could not be sure that the Abolitionists were not the fiends which our masters represented them to be. When they told us that the Abolitionists could they lay hands upon us, would buy and sell us, we could not certainly know that they spoke falsely; and when they told us that Abolitionists are in the habit of skinning the black man for leather and regaling their cannibalism on his flesh, even such enormities seem to us to be possible. But owing to the happy change in our circumstances, we are not as ignorant and credulous now as we once were; and if we did not know it before, we know it now, that slaveholders are as great liars as they are great tyrants... Including our children, we number in Canada, at least, twenty thousand. The total of our population in the free States far exceeds this. Nevertheless, we are poor, we can do little more to promote your deliverance than pray for it to the God of the oppressed. We will do what we can to supply you with pocket compasses. In dark nights, when his good guiding star is hidden from the flying slave, a pocket compass greatly facilitates his exodus. Besides, that we are too poor to furnish you with deadly weapons, candor requires the admission, that

worse, for we were already in the lowest depths of earthly woe. Even should we be overtaken, and subjected to slavery, this would be but to return to our old sufferings and sorrows; and should death itself prove to be the price of our endeavor after freedom, what would that be but a welcome release to men, who had all their lifetime been killed every day and “killed all the day long.” We have referred to our perils and hardships in escaping from slavery. We are happy to be able to say, that every year is multiplying the facilities for leaving the Southern prison house. The Liberty Party, the Vigilance Committee of New York.”

In Response to the Compromise of 1850

By: John C. Calhoun

Date: March 14, 1850

Explanation of the Source: John C. Calhoun's long political career was predominantly devoted to three issues: war against Britain, defending slavery, and vigorously supporting state's rights. While serving in the Senate, Calhoun devoted much of his energy to protecting the institution of slavery. Calhoun painted slavery as a "positive good" - going well beyond the "necessary evil" argument that was traditionally held by most southern politicians. Until his death in 1850, Calhoun hoped to expand slavery into the western territories and continued to fight against abolitionists, real and imagined, on all fronts. In a response to the Compromise of 1850, he would be unable to deliver a speech protesting against it. This is only a portion of that speech.

“One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place.

There is another lying back of it—with which this is intimately connected—that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the government as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression.

The result of the whole is to give the Northern section a predominance in every department of the government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the federal government: a majority of States, and a majority of their population, estimated in federal numbers. Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire government.”

Fugitive Slave Act, Lecture notes of Law

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