Reaction Post - Fugative Slave Act

 The Fugitive Slave Act is also known as the Fugitive Slave Law. By 1843, hundreds of slaves successfully escaped to the North. Slave owners were furious that their slaves ran away from them. A law, known as the Fugitive Slave Act, was passed on September 18th, 1850, by the 31st United States Congress to address this problem, This act was a part of the Compromise of 1850. This law required escaped slaves to be captured and returned to their owners. 

 

Officials that did not arrest runaway slaves who could be fined up to $1,000. This act was one of the main factors that sparked the American Civil War. Some free states did believe the Fugitive Slave Act was unfair. These states passed personal liberty laws that gave fugitive slaves a trial before returning them back to their owners.

 

Northerners resisted the Act because it made them responsible for enforcing slavery even though they were abolitionists. By 1861, Congress passed the Confiscation Act which prohibited slave owners from recapturing their slaves who ran away. James Mitchell Ashley tried to get the Fugitive Slave Act repealed in 1863, but the bill did not get passed by the committee. The Fugitive Slave Act was revoked in June of 1864.