THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW ; ABOLITIONSIST v.

ANTI-ABOLITIONSTS

ADRITA BHUYAN

SF0115002

2015-16, 2nd Semester

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

1
 Table of Cases (no citation)..........I
Introduction...........II
Objectives (s)...........III
Scope and Limitations..............IV
Review of Literature.................V
Research Questions and Hypotheses..........................VI
Research Methods............................................................................VII
1. The old age tradition: Slavery............................................................................9-11
1.1 Historical Context..............................................................................................9
1.2 Influencing Factors.............................................................................................11-14
1.2.1 Social and Economic...................................................................................11-12
1.2.2 Political...................................................................................................13-14
2. The Civil War and Slavery...................................................................................14
2.1 Background study : Causes and Consequences...............................................14

3. The Fugitive Slave Act : Role of Abraham Lincoln...........................................15

3.1 Measures of Fugitive Slave Act 1793 and 1850......................................15-17
3.2 Political Motives....................................................................................16-17
3.3 Clash between the north and the south : Property and Development Index.18-19
4. Abolitionist v. Anti- Abolitionist...................................................................20-21
5. Case Laws...........................................................................................22-26
5.1 1842, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania...............................................................22
5.2 In 1859 in Ableman v. Booth,..............................................................23-24.
5.3 The case of Anthony Burns.................................................................24-25
5.4 The Jerry Rescue...........................................................................25-26

Conclusion...............XVIII

Bibliography..................................................................................................................XIX

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TABLE OF CASES (NO CITATION)

SL. NAME OF THE CASE YEAR

NO.

1 PRIGG V. PENNSYLVANIA 1842

2 ABLEMAN V. BOOTH 1859

3 ANTHONY BURNS 1854

4 JERRY RESCUE 1851

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INTRODUCTION
Slavery has been a prominent aspect of every society that has uplifted itself through the series
of historical development in the form of technological advancements and industrialized
economies of the world. During the period of 1793-1850 various fugitive slave laws were
passed in consideration of various socio-economic conditions that prevailed in America at
that particular point of time. The Northern provinces and the Southern provinces had great
rivalry amongst themselves leading the various slave related conflicts that has multiple facets
to it. The plantation economy of the South was labour intensive in nature and for its survival,
slavery proved indispensable.1 And on the other hand North was highly industrialised that
used highly developed machinery and equipments. The contradictory priorities of both the
parties sparked conflict between the two parties.
The beginning of the American Civil War has various reasons that sparked off the war
between two regions of the country which is boss of world, the most immediate reasons were
the downfall of economic prospects for the Southern States and the election of Abraham
Lincoln as the president of USA, who had complete disdain towards the system of slavery
and wished to establish a free nation. Though slavery in American has been an old institution
that is backed by various socio-economic and political reasons that resulted in greater
prominence of the Southern states which were completely depended on slaves for their
agrarian activities. Infact, there are different facets to the systematic abolition of slave laws in
American that sparked off struggle between the Abolitionist and the Anti-Abolitionst in the
country creating a situation of hostility and tension.
This research project mainly deals with the causes and consequences of slavery which
ultimately led to the American Civil War, consequently studying the Fugitive Slave Law Act
of 1793 and 1850 that had desperate ideologies that framed the basic framework of the
prevailing societal conditions while studying the various case laws that prevailed between the
same time period. This provides a clear demarcation of the Abolitionist and Anti-Abolitionist
views that forced the two sides of the instant matter.Further, it also takes in account various
case laws that provide the reader a clear picture of the system of slavery that prevailed during
that period of time.

1Ranjan Chakrabarti, A History of The Modern World : An Outline, Primus Books, 2012,1,161-169

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Thus, American has been a great nation of innovation and power and the Civil War was
chapter towards this process of transition that took place in the great nation.

OBJECTIVES (S)

To study and analyse the causes and consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act in the
background of various circumstances.
To analyse the debate between the Abolitionist and the Anti-Abolitionist with the help
of omnifarious case laws between 1793-1850

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

Scope :

The scope of this research project mainly deals with before marks and the aftermath of the
Fugitive Slave Law and the matters related to it that led to time period of revolution in the
matter. The scope is restricted to understanding the conditions of America during this
particular period of time for which various case laws are taken into account to substantiate
the commentaries made by various historians.

Limitation :

1. The presence of disparate views by historians on the conditions that consisted in America
during the period of Fugitive Slave Law that might result in misappropriate facts prevailing in
historical context. Though this provides a huge amount of information, the main story or idea
might be affected by the same.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Brenda A. Allen et. Al, Slavery And Justice, Report of the Brown University Steering
Committee on Slavery and Justice

Slavery has been relatively an old instituition in American. This journal provides a clear and
beautiful depiction of the stages of slavery that prevailed in America. Americans in the
nineteenth century referred to slavery as the peculiar institution, but historically it is not
peculiar at all. On the contrary, it is a virtually universal feature of human history

The Fugitive Slave Act Of 1850: Symbolic Gesture Or Rational Guarantee?, Jeffrey
Rogers Hummel And Barry R. Weingast , January 2006

This article provides an enormous historical background of the instant matter along with
provisions of various conventions and provisions that of the Fugitive Slave Act. The need to
maintain the sectional veto created a territorial imperative for the South. In a growing nation,
particularly a fast-past growing North, the South had to expand in order to retain parity. Most
of the antebellum crises (1820, 1846-50, 1854-61) occurred when members of one or the
other section felt disadvantaged in this growth. For example, at moments when many
Northerners feared southern growth would lead to southern dominance of national politics,
they typically attacked slavery, as in 1819, creating the crisis over the Missouri, and again in
1846 with the Wilmot Proviso, creating the crisis over the Mexican cession. In both cases, the
northern weapon was an attack on slavery. This northern strategy, in turn, reinforced
Southerners' natural fears about the security of their property within the nation.

Federalism And The Fugitive Slave Act: The Making And Unmaking Of Constitutional
Nationalism , H. Robert Baker Assistant Professor
This journal provides a historical background of the conditions of American and also a
detailed study of the case provisions of the same. The Fugitive Slave Act affords one of the
best opportunities to witness antebellum constitutionalism in action. Passed by Congress
originally in 1793, it was one of the oldest contiguous congressional laws on the books by the
Civil War.
A History of The Modern World : An Outline, Ranjan Chakrabarti
The book by Ranjan Chakravarti is a excellent overview of the entire scenario that followed
in the American Civil War, that studies the conditions that led to the war and the provisions

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and consequences that followed during the war especially concentrating towards the slave
populations. It also provides a detailed information of the provision adopted by Abraham
Lincoln who was the American President at that time.

Slavery and the Civil War, Report by National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

This report by the National Park Service U.S Department of the Interior provides
information of the system of slavery that existed in America and the highlights the reasons
behind the initiation of the Civil War. Thereby, explaining the interrelation between slavery
and civil war. Although slavery existed in all 13 colonies at the start of the American
Revolution in 1775, a number of Americans (especially those of African descent) sensed the
contradiction between the Declaration of Independences ringing claim of human equality
and the existence of slavery.2

2 Slavery and the Civil War, Report by National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior , 1,1-3

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

Research Questions :

1. What were the conditions that led to the American Civil War?
2. What were the measures of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 and 1850?
3. The north and south were consequently divided between the Abolitionist and the Anti-
Abolitionist. What were the conditions and causes?

Hypothesis : This particular research project deals with the socio-economic conditions that
led to the American Civil War and then proceeds towards the national debate between the
Abolitionist and the Anti-Abolitionist regarding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and 1850 that
created an environment of tension and crisis in America with the assistance of substantive
case laws to the argument.

RESEARCH METHODS

Approach to research

In this project, the researcher has adopted Doctrinal type of research. Doctrinal research is
essentially a library based study, which means that the materials needed by a research may
be available in libraries, achieves and other databases. The research is totally based on library.
Various types of books were used to get the adequate data essential for this project. The
researcher also used computer laboratory to get important data related to this topic. Help from
various websites were also taken.

Sources of data collection

Data has been collected from secondary sources like books, web sources etc. No primary
sources like survey data or field data were collected by the researcher.

Method of citation

The method of citation adopted in this particular research project is Oscola 4th edition 2012

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 1. The old age tradition: Slavery in America

Americans in the nineteenth century referred to slavery as the peculiar institution, but
historically it is not peculiar at all. On the contrary, it is a virtually universal feature of human
history.3 The oldest surviving system of written laws, the Code of Hammurabi, includes
regulations about slavery, as does the Old Testament. Slavery was ubiquitous in the classical
world; about a third of the inhabitants of ancient Athens were slaves, roughly the same
proportion as in the antebellum American South. Slavery existed in the Muslim world
(usually as a status reserved for non-Muslims) and in Meso-America, in Africa and Asia, and
in western and eastern Europe.4 Though slavery and slave trading are universally prohibited
in national and international law, they remain endemic in the world today. 5 While estimates
vary, at least eighthundred thousand and perhaps as many as three million people are
trafcked annually, most of them women and children. 6

Slavery has been an age old tradition that has been the very root cause of various socio-
economic problems that have resulted in the countries of the world. The existence of slaves
has been very much prominent in every country to the coming of new methods of living.
Beginning from the stone age, while proceeding towards the growth of industrialization and
the present societal order of globalisation, slavery has been an ongoing factor that has been
constant . At the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries, slavery
and its legacy have gained a prominent place in the American consciousness. It has been the
subject of numerous movies, TV documentaries, radio expositions, monuments, museum
exhibits, as well as books, CDs, and websites. With the foundation of America, the founding
fathers firmly established the syetm of slavery in the five southernmost states at the
Constitutional Convention in 1787. In the United States slavery is understandably associated
with the South since it was the Southern states that so vigorously defended the practice
3 Brenda A. Allen et al.,Slavery and Justice, report of the Brown University Steering Committee on
Slavery and Justice,1,7-9

4 Ibid

5 Ibid

6 Ibid

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during the nineteenth century. However, to understand how slavery first took hold in the
South, historians look much farther back in time, to ancient Greece and Rome and the
civilizations that preceded them.7 In many of these societies, it was common practice to
enslave peoples who had been defeated in war. Even through the Middle Ages, Moors and
Christians enslaved each other and justified it on religious grounds. 8 Difficult as it is for us to
understand today, slavery was a simple fact of life throughout much of human history. During
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this unquestioning acceptance of slavery combined with
two other factors Europeans belief in the inferiority of other races and cultures, and
European settlement of the New Worldto give rise to the Atlantic slave trade. In the early
seventeenth century, the British colonists in North America joined the Spanish in importing
African slaves to the New World. 9 The slave trade eventually became more profitable in the
New World than in Europe, in part because Europe already had a large supply of indigenous
white labor.10 Historian David Brion Davis notes that in the 320 years from 1500 to 1820,
every European immigrant who arrived in the New World was matched by at least two
African slaves. Economic realities further made slavery more important to the southern
colonies of North America since they grew crops that required more hand cultivation and
cheap labor.11 Slaves in America has heavily contributed towards the system of
industrialisation and modernisation that disrupted the prevailing societal structure that was
more of an agrarian society. The growth of urbanisation also took place at the same time. This
era also reflected the gross violation of human rights policies in countries of the world
especially the slaves who were restricted to harsh and inhuman conditions of living away
from their home country and were traded to different countries without proper procedure that
was too followed. Slaves have highly contributed as the greatest for of labour while in the
absence of machinery and any other form of technology.

7 James D. Torr ,Slavery, Greenhaven Press. Greenhaven Press is an imprint of The Gale Group,
1974, 1,13-19

8 Ibid

9 Ibid

10 Ibid

11 Ibid

10
The issue of slavery in America has existed as a result of political revolutions that has been a
core factor due to the prevailing system of slavery. The American Civil War is an historical
irony.12 The founders of the new nations has believed that their country would stand as a
model for other societies to emulate, yet in just a few decades, American citizens failed to
resolve internal difference via any other solution than civil war.13 Though the founding fathers
were capable to forming an union despite the presence of social, economic, cultural
differences it was later found that there were two Americas- a North and a South- and the
speed of progress itself held latent dangers for the maintenance of sectional harmony.14 It took
eighty more years for slavery to become the focus of American politics, and when it did, it
plunged the nation into a bloody civil war. Though it cost over six hundred thousand lives,
the Civil War seemed to settle the issue of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment made slavery
15
illegal, and, over time, Americans reached a consensus that slavery was morally wrong.
Though there was no clear mention of slavery in any of the codified laws of America, Slavery
has been the main reason behind the distingeration of the American state. Thus, the following
sections in this research project would provide a clear demarcation of the prevailing historical
conditions that resulted in the adoption of the Fugitive Slave laws, also taking into account
the provisions and the measures associated with the same

1.2 Influencing Factors

For a war to take place, there are various complementary and disassociated factors that work
towards such an action to have taken place. The social, economic and the political factors are
of utmost importance as they are direct associated with the human population that is effected
by the norms that are adopted. The American Civil War was a war which brought about
political war between the north and the south of the country, mainly dealing with their own
political agendas to support their own plate while disrupting the interest of the other. The
north and the central regions of America was more dynamic, more progressive in terms of

12 Ibid

13 Ibid

14 Ibid

15 Ibid

11
commercial and industrial development, The South on the other hand, was more static and
feudal such that it was more labour intensive as it was mainly formed on the grounds of
agriculture which was based on labour work and less usage of technological advancements.
The factors to be taken into account are stated below.
1.2.1 Social and Economic

The American Civil War is largely a result of economic actors that largely governed the
functioning of the war and the main motive behind the parties in the war. The main objective
of war was to serve their own purpose and disrupting the purpose of the other. Thus, the north
which gained prominence in terms of economic development did face stiff competition from
the South. The economy of the South was based on the system of agriculture that was purely
labour intensive and thus it was clear to the northern states that shaking and breaking the very
root cause of development of the Southern states would bring about greater development of
the North. Hence, resulting in greater dominance of the northern states.
The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South
Carolina,Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas,Tenne
ssee, and North Carolina) in 186061 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities were the
culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery. 16Between 1815 and 1861
the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although
agriculturemostly smaller farms that relied on free labourremained the dominant sector
in the North, industrialization had taken root there. 17 Moreover, Northerners had invested
heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads,
steamboats, and railroads; in financial industries such as banking and insurance; and in a
large communications network that featured inexpensive, widely available newspapers,
magazines, and books, along with the telegraph. 18
By contrast, the Southern economy was based principally on large farms (plantations) that
produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force.
Rather than invest in factories or railroads as Northerners had done, Southerners invested

16 Jennifer L. Weber& Warren W. Hassler ,War Between States, American Civil War : United States
History, Encyclopedia Britanica, 5 Septerm, 2016, 1, 1-17

17 Ibid

18 Ibid

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their money in slaveseven more than in land; by 1860, 84 percent of the capital invested in
manufacturing was invested in the free (no slaveholding) states. 19 Yet, to Southerners, as late
as 1860, this appeared to be a sound business decision. The price of cotton, the Souths
defining crop, had skyrocketed in the 1850s, and the value of slaveswho were, after all,
propertyrose commensurately. By 1860 the per capita wealth of Southern whites was twice
that of Northerners, and three-fifths of the wealthiest individuals in the country were
Southerners.20Slavery was an economics necessity for the South. The planters of the South
knew that their prosperity depended on the slave labour.21 Cotton culture and its labour
system came to be representing a vast investment of capital in the South. By 1850, seven-
eights of the worlds supply of cotton was grown in American South. 22 Slavery increased
concomitantly and in national politics, Southerners chiefly sought protection and enlargement
of the interests represented by the cotton-slavery system.23

1.2.2 Political

Political also played a major role in shaping the American Civil War. The Abolitionist which
represented the North declared that No slave-holder was innocent and that slave-holding
was a crime.24 The most powerful of all North American abolitionist propaganda was a
work of friction, H.B.Stowes novel Uncle Toms Cabin.25 Abolitionist arguments were
received with increasing favoyr in the North. But Soutghern platers continued to believe that
slavery has a moral justification. The issue of slavery was closely connected with westward

19 Ibid

20 Ibid

21Ibid

22 Ibid

23 Ibid

24 Ibid

25 Ibid

13
 26
expansion. Although slavery existed in all 13 colonies at the start of the American
Revolution in 1775, a number of Americans (especially those of African descent) sensed the
contradiction between the Declaration of Independences ringing claim of human equality
and the existence of slavery.27 Reacting to that contradiction, the Northern states decided to
phase out slavery following the Revolution.28 The future of slavery in the South was debated,
and some held out the hope that it would eventually disappear there as well. 29Although slaves
could not vote, the white Southerners debated that slaves contributed highly towards the
economy..The Constitution therefore gave representation in the Congress and the electoral
college for 3/5ths of every slave (the 3/5ths clause). 30 The clause gave the South a in the
national government far greater than representation based on its free population alone would
have given it. The Constitution also provided for a fugitive slave law and made 1807 the
earliest year that Congress could act to end the importation of slaves from Africa.31
The presidential elections of 1860, where the democratic party nominated Abraham Lincoln
as the president Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. His platform included government support of
road and harbour projects and higher tariffs (import taxes) to protect American industry, in
addition to keeping slavery out of the territory Thus, the election of Lincoln as the president
resulted in the American Civil War as his ideology completely went against the core idea of
the South.

2. The Civil War and Slavery

2.1 Background study : Causes and Consequence.

26 Ibid

27 Slavery and the Civil War, Report by National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior , 1,1-3

28 Ibid

29 Ibid

30 Ibid

31 Ibid

14
With the signing of the Compromise of 1850, most thought that there was no probability of
the Civil War. There were various causes which were the prime reason behind the
proclamation of the Civil War but the victory of Lincoln was one of the immediate causes of
the Civil War as he regarded slavery as an evil in the society. The secession of the
Southerners states served as another immediate cause of the war. Later, during his inaugural
address, Abraham Lincoln refused to recognise the secession and considered as legally void.
In terms of material resources the North enjoyed a clear advantage and also industrial
superiority marked great importance in terms of winning the war. The issue of slavery had
become the prime reason for the secession. In the Missiippi Valley, the Union forces won an
almost uninterrupted series of victories and could advance some 320 km into the heart of the
Confederacy. In terms of the main consequence of the war, the victory of the North in the
Civil War finally decided that slavery was to be abolished and that the compact theory of the
Union was to be given up. The African was no longer a slave and had rights which the white
men was bound to respect. They were freed to the position of a white man in America.

3. The Fugitive Slave Act : The role of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is an enigma of humanity as his greatest gift for America was that he freed
America from the clutches of slavery. In 1854 Lincoln publicly denounced slavery on moral
32
groups condemning it as a monstrous injustice.
Abraham Lincoln was morally opposed to slavery. However, he responded very differently to
the Fugitive Slave Act, which required the governments of non-slaveholding states to return
runaway slaves to their owners.33 Lincoln believed that citizens have an obligation to obey
existing laws, even if they find them morally objectionable. Lincoln himself promised to
enforce the Fugitive Slave Act during his first inaugural address on 4 th march 1861. The idea

32 Ibid

33Nora Hanagan, Lincoln and Thoreau, The kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1999, 1, 1-3

15
that citizens can choose to disobey particular laws, Lincoln explained, undermines the
sanctity of all laws.34 If abolitionists claim the right to disobey laws that they dislike, then
other groups are likely to claim a similar right. In particular, lynch mobs might claim that
they have a right to hang African Americans who have been accused of crimes without a
proper trial. In addition to promising to uphold the Act, Lincoln discouraged abolitionists
from seeking to have it repealed.35 The Fugitive Slave Act, he argued, was a compromise
necessary to preserve the peace and stability of the Union. Its repeal would cause the South to
secede, an event which would make the eventual abolition of slavery even more difficult. If
the southern states succeeded in obtaining independence, Lincoln warned, they would be able
to reinstate the slave trade and make treaties with Canada that would require the extradition
of runaway slaves who had crossed the Canadian border. 36

3.1 Measures of Fugitive Slave Act 1793 and 1850

Pro-southern measures, such as the organization of new slave territories or the admission of
slave states, had always been passed by a coalition composed of nearly all Southerners in
combination with sufficient Northerners (typically Democrats) to make a majority (Weingast
1998).37 Yet this coalition failed as Southerners northern coalition partners defected in the
wake of the Mexican war to insist on the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to prohibit the
extension of slavery into the territories gained by the war.38 This measure consistently passed
the House between 1846 and 1849, where Northerners held a majority, but was vetoed by
Southerners in the Senate.39 Throughout the antebellum era, Southerners rationally worried
about the security of their property. Nothing natural sustained the nation as one protecting the
interests of southern slaveholders. A necessary condition for Southerners to participate in the
34 Ibid

35 Ibid

36 Ibid

37 Jeffrey Rogers Hummel & Barry R. Weingast, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Symbolic
Gesture or Rational Guarantee? , Princeton University, January 2006, 1, 1-19

38 Ibid

39 Ibid

16
union was that Northerners and the nation provide a credible commitment that the national
government would not act against slavery.40 And if there were long periods of relative
quiescence with little agitation about slavery and little ostensible concern by slaveholders,
this occurred because slaveholders had demanded and received institutions that provided a
credible commitment to protect slavery within the nation. 41 In 1850, slaveholders faced two
risks to their principal source of long-term political security within the nation, their veto over
national policymaking through sectional balance. First, the admission of California without a
slave state to balance it directly threatened the southern veto. Second, the migration of slaves
out of the border regions into the deep South threatened to loosen the commitment of the
peripheral slaveholders to slavery; again, threatening southern veto through sectional balance.
These risks set the stage for southern behaviour during the negotiations over the Compromise
of 1850.42

3.2 Political Motives

The Compromise of 1850 was a promise to return to politics as usual, to bury the sectional
hostilities that had pervaded national politics since 1846. For many Southerners, politics as
usual meant expanding slavery in a fashion that paralleled the northern expansion, so as to
maintain their veto in the Senate. Virtually all Southerners vote for important pro-southern
measures. The pivotal voter is that Northerner sufficient to make a majority in Congress. 43 In
1850, Southerners composed 38 percent of the House of Representatives. To form a majority,
Southerners therefore needed the support of another 12 to 15 percent of the House, or
approximately 20-25 percent of all Northerners.44 What Southerners really wanted to know
was whether sufficient Northerners would at some future date vote to reinstate balance. 45 Yet,
this was unknowable with any certainty in 1850. But Southerners could learn a critical piece

40 Ibid

41 Ibid

42 Ibid

43 Ibid

44 Ibid

17
of information today about the future northern willingness to support the South. 46 If today's
pivot were anti-South, then it is likely that tomorrow's pivot would be as well. Hence
congressional leaders included the fugitive slave law in part to reveal information about the
northern pivot as either pro- or anti-South. 47 As with a future measure to admit a slave state,
the fugitive slave law was costly for northern members of Congress to support. 48 The
behavior of the northern pivot on this measure would therefore provide something of a test of
the pivot's type. The Southerners decision to participate in the Compromise would be
contingent upon the Northerners' willingness to accept the fugitive slave act. If sufficient
numbers of Northerners would not support the fugitive slave act, then Southerners would
know today that it was unlikely that a pro-southern coalition would form in the future to
admit a new slave state.49

45 Ibid

46 Ibid

47 Ibid

48 Ibid

49 Ibid

18
 3.4 Clash between the north and the south : Property & Development Index

By 1861, the division of North and South caused by slavery

The Souths dependence on the industrial resources of the North underlay a visible social
split.50 The South remained as the North has being the eighteenth century, agrarian and rural,
with most Southern living on the land and working as subsistence farmers, raising corn, hogs
and root crops, most of which they consumed themselves or sold locally, while the
Northerners began during the nineteenth century to migrate from the land to towns in which
they found wage paying work.51 Northerners complained they could hardly understand the
50 John Keegan, The American Civil War, Published by Vintage, 2010. 1,15

51 Ibid

19
way Southerners spoke, the soldiers of the two sides resembled each other much more than
they differed. Nevertheless, North and South were different and the differences showed in the
character of the armies.52
There was clear demarcation of conflicting interest between the North and the South which
became evident in the coming scenario. Resenting the large profits amassed by northern
businessmen from marketing the cotton crop, southerners attributed the backwardness of their
own section to northern aggrandizement.53 Also northerners, on the other hand, With the rise
of a strong and vocal Abolitionist Party in North which attacked the core idea of slavery and
declared that no slave holder was Innocent and that slave holding was a crime. While on
the other hand, Slavery was an economic necessity for the out of which tried to provide a
moral justification for slavery where they tried to point out that even the Bible recognized but
54
never condemned human bondage. Despite the ongoing Abolitionist movement, the
ordinance of 1787 was modified by the Missouri Compromise (1820) in which Missouri of
her southern boundary was fixed as the northern limit of slavery in lands west of Missouri
which lasted until 1850. After California being admitted as a free state, A new Fugitive Slave
Law was passed, empowering the Federal Government to hunt and restore runaway slaves. 55
Later on, by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1856, the Missouri Compromise was repealed and
the people of Kansan and Nebraska were allowed to determine for themselves whether they
would own slaves or not. This act declared that the people of each territory would vote on the
question of slavery and only if the majority agreed to do the same. 56 Southerners faced a
dilemma in 1850 should they accept the compromise and hence the breaking of balance
today, granting Northerners a numerical advantage that would allow them in the future to take
advantage of the South. 57The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was one of the most controversial
laws ever passed. In 1793, Congress passed a law which stated that all fugitive runaway

52 Ibid

53 Ibid

54 Ibid

55 Ibid

56 Ibid

57 Ibid

20
slaves had to be returned to their masters. While it was enforced after it was passed, many
people in the Northern states began ignoring the law and tried to circumvent the old Fugitive
Slave Act by helping slaves to run away and escape into Canada. In an effort to resolve the
issue between the North and the South the Compromise of 1850 was passed which led to
formation of Fugitive Slave Act 1850.58 The act was one of the principle parts of the
compromise which stated that all the fugitive slaves must be returned to their masters and
poised a certain amount of fine for law enforcement officials who did not assist with the
return of a runaway slave.59
Apart from the issue of slavery that was the core difference between the North and the South,
there was the presence of other considerable number of differences between the two
provinces wherein the South humbly believe that the North was behind their economic
problems which could only be solved with the assistance of political independence.
Later during the presidential elections, Republican party nominee Abraham Lincoln won the
1860 election that sparked the tension between the North and the South as Lincoln was
preacher of free slave state and which upset the Southerners ultimately leading to the
secession of the South from the union. President Lincoln refused to recognize the secession
of the Southern states following which with the advent of civil war was marked. On January
1863, President Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the
rebelling states and inviting them to join the armed forces of the North and declared the
abolition of slavery as an objective of the War.60

4. Abolitionist v. Anti- Abolitionist

The goal of the abolitionist movement was the immediate emancipation of all slaves and the
end of racial discrimination and segregation.61 Advocating for immediate emancipation
58 Jake Henderson & Robert Marshall, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Reading Through History,
2013, 1,1-20

59 Ibid

60 Ibid

61 History.com Staff,History.com,2009,Abolitionist Movement , A+E Networks,

<http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement>November 11, 2016

21
distinguished abolitionists from more moderate anti-slavery advocates who argued for
gradual emancipation, and from free-soil activists who sought to restrict slavery to existing
areas and prevent its spread further west. 62 Abolitionist ideas became increasingly prominent
in Northern churches and politics beginning in the 1830s, which contributed to the regional
animosity between North and South leading up to the Civil War.63 From the 1830s until 1870,
the abolitionist movement attempted to achieve immediate emancipation of all slaves and the
ending of racial segregation and discrimination.64 Their propounding of these goals
distinguished abolitionists from the broad-based political opposition to slaverys westward
expansion that took form in the North after 1840 and raised issues leading to the Civil War. 65
Yet these two expressions of hostility to slaveryabolitionism and Free-Soilismwere often
closely related not only in their beliefs and their interaction but also in the minds of southern
slaveholders who finally came to regard the North as united against them in favor of black
emancipation.66
By the later 1850s, organized abolitionism in politics had been subsumed by the larger
sectional crisis over slavery prompted by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision,
and John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry.67 Most abolitionists reluctantly supported the
Republican party, stood by the Union in the secession crisis, and became militant champions
of military emancipation during the Civil War.68 The movement again split in 1865, when
Garrison and his supporters asserted that the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing
slavery made continuation of the American Anti-Slavery Society unnecessary.69 But a larger

62 Ibid

63 Ibid

64 Ibid

65 Ibid

66 Ibid

67 Ibid

68 Ibid

69 Ibid

22
group led by Wendell Phillips, insisting that only the achievement of complete political
equality for all black males could guarantee the freedom of the former slaves, successfully
prevented Garrison from dissolving the society.70 It continued until 1870 to demand land, the
ballot, and education for the freedman.71 Only when the Fifteenth Amendment extending
male suffrage to African-Americans was passed did the society declare its mission
completed.72 Traditions of racial egalitarianism begun by abolitionists lived on, however, to
inspire the subsequent founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People in 1909.73

5. Case Laws
5.1 1842, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania

Edward Prigg, a citizen of the state of Maryland, was indicted for kidnapping, in the court of
oyer and terminer of York county, Pennsylvania, for having forcibly taken and carried away,
from that county, to the state of Maryland, a negro woman, named Margaret Morgan, with the
design and intention of her being held, sold and disposed of, as a slave for life, contrary to a
statute of Pennsylvania, passed on the 26th day of March 1826; Edward Prigg pleaded not
guilty, and the jury found a special verdict, on which judgment was rendered for the
commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the case was removed to the supreme court of the state, and
the judgment of the court of oyer and terminer was, pro form, affirmed; and the case was
carried to the supreme court of the United States; the constitutionality of the law, under which
the indictment was found, being denied by the counsel of the state of Maryland; which state
had undertaken the defence for Edward Prigg, and prosecuted the writ of error; the cause was
brought to the supreme court, with the sanction of both the states of Maryland and

70 Ibid

71 Ibid

72 Ibid

73 Ibid

23
Pennsylvania, with a view to have the question in the case settled. Margaret Morgan was the
slave for life, under the laws of Maryland, of Margaret Ashmore, a citizen of that state; in
1832, she escaped and fled from the state, into Pennsylvania; Edward Prigg, having been duly
appointed the agent and attorney of Margaret Ashmore, and having obtained a warrant from a
justice of the peace of York county, caused Margaret Morgan to be taken, as a fugitive from
labor, by a constable of the state of Pennsylvania, before the magistrate, who refused to take
cognisance of the case; and thereupon, Edward Prigg carried her and her children into
Maryland, and delivered them to Margaret Ashmore. The children were born in Pennsylvania;
one of them, more than a year after Margaret Morgan had fled and escaped from Maryland.74
By the first section of the act of assembly of Pennsylvania, of 25th March 1826, it is
provided, that if any person shall, by force and violence, take and carry away, or shall, by
fraud or false pretence, attempt to take, carry away or seduce, any negro or mulatto, from any
part of the commonwealth, with a design or intention of selling and disposing of, or keeping
or detaining, such negro or mulatto, as a slave or servant for life, or for any other term
whatsoever such person, and all persons aiding and abetting him, shall, on conviction thereof,
be deemed guilty of a felony, and shall forfeit and pay a sum not less than $500 nor more than
$3000, and shall be sentenced to undergo a servitude for any term or terms of years, not less
than seven years, nor exceeding twenty-one years, and shall be confined and kept at hard
labor.75
The Court's decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania was a pro- and anti-slavery mixture. It granted
slaveholders the right to recapture slaves using private force, without going through any legal
process, state or federal. But Justice Joseph Story, rendering the Court's majority opinion,
also conceded that the state governments were under no positive obligation to assist
enforcement of the fugitive slave provision. 76

5.2 In 1859 in Ableman v. Booth

74 Supreme Court of the United States Edward Prigg, Plaintiff in error, v. The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, Defendant in error. January Term, 1842, 41 U.S. 539, 16 Pet. 539, 1842 WL 5728
(U.S.Pa.), 10 L.Ed. 1060 (Cite as: 41 U.S. 539, Westlaw)

75 Ibid

76 Ibid

24
Ableman v. Booth, (1859), case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld both the
constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act and the supremacy of the federal government over
state governments. In the mid1850s, a federal marshal arrested Sherman M. Booth, an
abolitionist editor from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and charged him with violating the Fugitive
Slave Act by helping a slave to escape. 77 Because there was no federal prison in the area, the
marshal placed Booth in a local jail. The prisoner then petitioned the Wisconsin supreme
court for habeas corpus.78 That court granted the writ and declared the Fugitive Slave Act
unconstitutional. The marshal obtained review in the U.S. Supreme Court. Before the justices
heard the case, a federal trial court convicted Booth, sentenced him to a year in prison, and
ordered him to pay a fine of $1,000.79 Again he sought habeas corpus from the Wisconsin
supreme court, and again that court granted the writ, holding that the federal trial court's
action was as unconstitutional as the statute on which the conviction was based. The local
jailer freed Booth.80 The marshal asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this second state
decision as well. The justices consolidated the two appeals. 81 Ableman v. Booth was one of
the final victories for slave owners in the federal government. After Abraham Lincoln became
president in 1860, the country split apart in a civil war over the issues of slavery and states'
rights. Booth remain in prison until 1861.

5.3 The case of Anthony Burns

Anthony Burns was born into slavery in Stafford County, Virginia in 1834, the youngest of 13
children. His mother was the cook of a slaveholder named John Suttle. Suttle owned just over
a dozen enslaved Africans, using the men to quarry rock, which would then be transported to
the city of Washington.82 When Anthony was a small child his father died from an illness he
caught as a result of being exposed to the stone dust at the quarry, and not long after that,

77Ableman v. Booth,62 U.S.,506, 16 L.Ed. 169 (1859), Westlaw

78 Ibid

79 Ibid

80 Ibid

81 Ibid

82 Charles Emery Stevens, Anthony Burns A History (Boston: J.P. Jewett and Co., 1856), 152.

25
Suttle died, leaving the estate to his widow. Mrs. Suttle did not manage the estate well, and
sold some of the family slaves to help pay the bills, five of whom were Anthonys siblings. 83
When Anthony was six, Mrs. Suttle died, leaving the estate to her eldest son, Charles. Charles
was a shop-keeper who rose to become a representative for his district in the Virginia
Assembly. Anthony worked for Charles in his home, nursing Charles sisters children. It is
through accompanying them to school that he first began his education. 84 When Anthony
Burns was only seven, Charles Suttle mortgaged out In defiance of the laws of Virginia at this
time, he was taught numbers and letters alongside the children he was tasked with watching.
some of his slaves to help pay his mothers debts, and Anthony became a house servant for
three religiously-minded women who imparted to him Biblical studies. Upon leaving these
three ladies, Anthony moved to a house where the wife of his new master kept a school, and
again, Anthony took this opportunity to learn. 85 greatly in his later life. This early education
would benefit Burns At the age of 13, Anthony was employed by a cruel owner of a saw mill
named Foote. Though Foote had a daughter who continued to feed Anthonys desire for
learning, it was here that he mangled his hand in some machinery in the mill. 86 Though this
was an unfortunate accident, the time away from labour afforded Anthony the opportunity to
further explore his faith, and his need for spirituality grew alongside his need for knowledge.
After awhile, Anthony was baptized in the Baptist Church in Falmouth, Virginia, a
congregation made up of both white people and enslaved African Americans. As his faith
grew, he would begin to preach to his fellow slaves in kitchens and in small meetings, which
violated the laws of Virginia that forbade gatherings of Black people without whites present.
These meetings were sometimes broken up by officials in a violent manner, punishable by up
to 30 lashes, an extreme punishment for Anthony for leading his fellow slaves in worship. 87
When Anthony was 19, he escaped slavery. Charles Suttle had continued to mortgage him to
people needing labourers. The final person to whom he was hired was an apothecary who did

83 ibid

84 Stevens 154

85 Stevens 155

86 Stevens 162

87 Stevens 166

26
not have the volume of work that he thought he would, so he illegally sent Anthony out every
day to do odd jobs for other whites in need of workers. Through this, Anthony met sailors and
other itinerant men, some of whom spoke to Anthony of freedom. With the stories of a free
North constantly on his mind, Anthony took the opportunity to escape from slavery. Having
befriended a sailor, he was able to stow away on a ship and set sail for freedom in the hours
before dawn, in February 1854.88 Anthony Burns fled to the Northern states and settled in
Boston. There he worked for wages that he could keep for himself for the first time in his life.
Coffin Pitts, a clothing dealer, was his employer.viii months of freedom, he was discovered to
be a fugitive After only three slave. On May 24, 1854, while walking through Boston,
Anthony Burns was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act.ix of runaway slaves to secure their
property, This law enabled the owners wherever it might be found within the bounds of the
republic, and return it to the south.89 It was this event which sparked the famous trial of
Anthony Burns. Boston was a city well known for assisting fugitives, a city full of
abolitionists and very much against the Fugitive Slave Act. The day after his arrest, Anthony
90
was taken to the courthouse in manacles for inspection by the judge. A group of
abolitionists entered the courtroom to make a defense for him. As the days passed, the news
of Anthonys arrest spread throughout Boston, and outraged men and women cried out for
justice.91 On May 26th, a mob of 2,000 men stormed the jail where Anthony Burns was
housed with the intention of rescuing him.92 During the riot, the door of the jail was broken
down, but Anthony remained in custody. Two companies of artillery were called out to secure
him; one man died in the ensuing violence, and several others were injured, but the streets
were eventually cleared.xiii On May 29th, the trial of Anthony Burns resumed, with soldiers
on guard to prevent any further rioting. Though his defense was strong, the Fugitive Slave
Act was the law, and he was sentenced to be sent back to slavery in Virginia. xiv platoon of
the United States Marines, the marshals civic posse of Fearing further attempts at a rescue,

88 Stevens 178

89 Ibid

90 Ibid

91 Ibid

92 Ibid

27
Anthony was escorted to the boat that would take him back to the South by a veritable army
of men: a regiment of artillery, a 125 men, and three further platoons of Marines guarded him
on the way to the wharf.93 In protest against the judges ruling and the excessive escort, the
citizens of Boston draped their windows and storefronts in black, a sign of mourning. Across
from the State House was suspended a coffin on which the words The Funeral of Liberty
were written, and the countrys flag hung upside down.xvi An estimated 50,000 people
watched the procession down to the docks, baring their heads, and shouting cries of Shame!
and Kidnappers! On the shore supporters of Anthony mourned justice, while on the river, a
boat carrying Southern members of a commercial convention played The Star Spangled
Banner, in support of the victory of the slave owner who claimed Anthony Burns, and had
won the court case. Upon his return to Virginia, Anthony Burns was sold to an owner in
North Carolina. All was not lost for Anthony, however, as within a few months, the pastor of
the church he had attended in Boston, the Twelfth Baptist Church, raised the $1,200 that
Charles Suttle claimed Anthony was worth, and bought his freedom.xix Although Anthonys
trial and subsequent freedom took nearly a year to be completed, the event was heralded by
many as the beginning of the end of slavery.94 In 1855, a newly free man, Anthony Burns
received a scholarship to Oberlin College from a donation received by a woman in Boston,
and he studied at the integrated university for several years, eventually becoming an ordained
preacher. In 1860, he became the minister for a Black Baptist Church in Indianapolis, but was
forced to leave because the Black Laws of that state were such that he could have once again
been sent to prison. The state constitution adopted in 1851 prohibited Free Blacks from
immigrating into Indiana.xxi Not long after this, Anthony moved to Canada, and his time in
St. Catharines, Canada West, began after he answered a call to lead the Zion Baptist Church
there. However, Anthony would not long enjoy his freedom. In July of 1862, he succumbed
to tuberculosis. A newspaper article printed after his death stated: When he came he saw that
there was much for him to do and he set himself to do it with all his heart and he was
prospering in his work, he was getting the affairs of the church into good shape. Like so
many others, he came to Canada free, fearing re-enslavement or imprisonment in Indiana
simply because he was of African ancestry.95 Though his time in St. Catharines was short, he

93 Ibid

94 Ibid

95 Ibid

28
is remembered by the community to this day. His remains rest in the Park Lawn Cemetery
where his headstone, once fallen over and cracked, is now protected from further damage. So
much is he respected by this community that his memory is honoured with a heritage plaque
outside of the cemetery.96

5.4 The Jerry Rescue

Throughout antebellum America, collective violence such as the Jerry rescue was used to
accomplish political goals and express community values.97 On September 18, 1850, the
United States Congress passed a law called the Fugitive Slave Act. This law said
that all runaway slaves had to be returned to their masters in the South, even if
they had gained their freedom by escaping to Northern free states. 98 Many
people in the North were angry about this law, and some Abolitionists (people
who fought against slavery) declared that they would not follow the law, but
continue to help freed slaves escape to Canada. On October 1st, 1851, an
Abolitionist political party called the Liberty Party was holding an Anti- Slavery
Convention in Syracuse, New York. Syracuse was well known for its Abolitionist
activities. Many escaped slaves felt safe here. The very same day, a former slave
from Missouri named William Jerry Henry, who was working in Syracuse as a
cooper, or barrel maker, was arrested by Federal Marshals under the Fugitive
Slave Law. What followed was the largest and most shocking outpouring of anger
toward slavery and the South that the North had ever seen. What followed
became known as The Jerry Rescue.
The pro-abolitionist violence of the Jerry rescuers differed from the common types of
antebellum group violence in two respects. First, most rioting during this era was either
expressive or preservationist. Expressive rioting, which included gang fights, firemen's
brawls, election riots, and labor violence, reinforced the rioters' own sense of solidarity and

96 Ibid

97 Jayme A. Sokolow , The Jerry McHenry Rescue and the Growth of Northern Antislavery
Sentiment during the 1850s ,Journal of American Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Dec., 1982), pp. 427-445
,Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British Association for American Studies, 20/02/2010
20:0

98 An American Story - THE JERRY RESCUE of 1851 Connections to Womens Rights Activists

29
communicated it to the outside world. 99 Preservationist groups used collective violence to
impose their dominance over alleged outsiders - Catholics, Mormons, blacks, or abolitionists.
The Jerry rescue, by contrast, combined both forms. 100 The Vigilance Committee and its
supporters were trying to cement community solidarity, express their sense of justice, and
apply moral values against a group which was perceived as consisting of either aliens or
intruders. In Syracuse, they were Commissioner Sabine and the deputy marshalls, who were
local residents, and the two men from Missouri, James Lear and Marion County sheriff
Samuel Smith. The Jerry rescue did not represent an internal conflict in which abolitionists
triumphed over Syracuse pro-slavery advocates but instead was a community demonstration
against a distant enemy and its local law enforcers. Second, the collective violence of the
Jerry rescue marked the development of a novel type of strife in pre-Civil War America: pro-
abolitionist rioting.101
Nevertheless, the rhetoric, behaviour, and occupational backgrounds of the Jerry rescuers and
their supporters demonstrate that the citizens of Syracuse supported the antislavery crusade
for many of the same reasons that mobs attacked abolitionists. Opposition to the slave power
promoted community solidarity and reinforced widely accepted beliefs in opposition to those
who seemed to threaten local elites and traditional authority - the South and its northern
allies.102

99 Ibid

100 Ibid

101 Ibid

102 Ibid

30
CONCLUSION
Reaching to the end of the subject matter, this particular research project aimed towards
studying and analysing the causes and consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act in the
background of various circumstances and analysing the debate between the Abolitionist and
the Anti-Abolitionist with the help of omnifarious case laws between 1793-1850 after the
declaration of the Fugitive Slave Law 1793 and 1850. Both had there own measures that tried
to control the situation of conflict the erupted between the Northern and the Southern
provinces of America.

As the Northern states of American wished to abolish the system of slavery, on the other
hand, the Southern states were primarily agrarian in nature and highly depended on the need
of slaves for their day to day activities. In 1793, Congress passed a law which stated that all
fugitive runaway slaves had to be returned to their masters. While it was enforced after it was
passed, many people in the Northern states began ignoring the law and tried to circumvent the
old Fugitive Slave Act by helping slaves to run away and escape into Canada. In an effort to
resolve the issue between the North and the South the Compromise of 1850 was passed
which led to formation of Fugitive Slave Act 1850. 103The act was one of the principle parts of
the compromise which stated that all the fugitive slaves must be returned to their masters and
poised a certain amount of fine for law enforcement officials who did not assist with the
return of a runaway slave.104

Thus, both the laws of 1793 and 1850 had a huge impact on the actions of the abolitionist and
the anti-abolitionist who had disparate methodologies of serving their own plate in terms of
various policy making procedures that existed during the period of 1793-1861, that is till the
period of time when Abraham Lincoln was elected as the president of America who was the
mastermind behind the abolition of slavery in the nation state and worked every measure to
abolish the same.

103 Jake Henderson & Robert Marshall, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Reading Through History,
2013, 1,1-20

104 Ibid

31
In this particular research project, the researcher tries to analyses the measures of 1793 and
1850 that existed in America during the two prominent Fugitive Slaves Laws passed and
while taking into account the case laws such a Prigg v. Pennsylvania,In 1859 in Ableman v.
Booth, The case of Anthony Burns The Jerry Rescue that provides the reader a clear
understanding of the prevailing conditions in America. Thus, the Civil War ended with the
defeat of the Southerners on 1863 in the Missipppi Valley and Abraham Lincoln greatest gift
to the nation and to humanity finally established its mark in the history of America.

32
BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS
1. Ranjan Chakrabarti, A History of The Modern World : An Outline, Primus Books,
2012,1,161-169
2.
REPORTS

1. Slavery and the Civil War, Report by National Park Service U.S. Department of the
Interior , 1,1-3
2. Brenda A. Allen et al.,Slavery and Justice, report of the Brown University Steering
Committee on Slavery and Justice,1,7-9
3. Slavery and the Civil War, Report by National Park Service U.S. Department of the
Interior , 1,1-3
4. Charles Emery Stevens, Anthony Burns A History (Boston: J.P. Jewett and Co., 1856),
152.
5. An American Story - THE JERRY RESCUE of 1851 Connections to Womens Rights
Activists

JOURNAL

1. James D. Torr ,Slavery, Greenhaven Press. Greenhaven Press is an imprint of The

Gale Group, 1974, 1,13-19
2. Jennifer L. Weber& Warren W. Hassler ,War Between States, American Civil War :
United States History, Encyclopedia Britanica, 5 Septerm, 2016, 1, 1-17
3. Nora Hanagan, Lincoln and Thoreau, The kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke
University, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, 1, 1-3
4. Jeffrey Rogers Hummel & Barry R. Weingast, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850:
Symbolic Gesture or Rational Guarantee? , Princeton University, January 2006, 1, 1-
19
5. John Keegan, The American Civil War, Published by Vintage, 2010. 1,15
6. Jayme A. Sokolow , The Jerry McHenry Rescue and the Growth of Northern
Antislavery Sentiment during the 1850s ,Journal of American Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3
(Dec., 1982), pp. 427-445 ,Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British
Association for American Studies, 20/02/2010 20:0

33
WESTLAW CASES
1. Supreme Court of the United States Edward Prigg, Plaintiff in error, v. The
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Defendant in error. January Term, 1842, 41 U.S.
539, 16 Pet. 539, 1842 WL 5728 (U.S.Pa.), 10 L.Ed. 1060 (Cite as: 41 U.S. 539,
Westlaw)
2. Ableman v. Booth,62 U.S.,506, 16 L.Ed. 169 (1859), Westlaw

34