Resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws in the United States

Fugitive Slave Laws Northern Resistance to the Laws

Introduction to Resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws

Owing to northern resentments, the acts of 1793 and 1850 faced legal challenges, primarily in the form of jurisdictional disputes over state personal liberty laws. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against a Pennsylvania citizenship statute and upheld the first fugitive slave law’s constitutionality. Nevertheless, some states continued to pass laws strengthening the applicability of habeas corpus writs and prohibiting state officials from accepting jurisdiction under federal law. In Ohio, the chief objective was less a desire to expand black rights than to ensure that outright kidnapping was not condoned. (Ohio did not repeal its virulently discriminatory Black Code until 1849.) Southerners objected strenuously to personal liberty laws as a violation of sectional equity and reciprocal trust; but the 1850 act, seen in the North as punitive and tyrannical, only aroused greater sectional animosities. Northern opposition was most dramatically illustrated when an abolitionist Boston mob tried to rescue Anthony Burns, a fugitive from Virginia, in May 1854. The mission failed. Commissioner Edward Loring had Burns remanded to slavery, and U.S. troops escorted him through sullen crowds to a waiting ship. The effort cost the federal government more than $100,000.

The legal conflict that pitted northern personal liberty statutes against federal fugitive slave measures reflected the concepts of double sovereignty that citizens of the federated Union then entertained. Southerners insisted on the sovereignty of the states, but in this controversy northerners “nullified” unwelcome federal laws. Although the constitutionality of the fugitive slave laws was unquestioned, only the force of arms could finally define the nature of the Union, its source of authority, and the boundaries of liberty. See also Compromise Measures of 1850.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws