The Compromise of 1850 & the Fugitive Slave Act
1850
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Document 1, Summary:
from: PBS: “Africans in America” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky, was determined to find a solution. In 1820 he had resolved a fiery
debate over the spread of slavery with his Missouri Compromise. Now, thirty years later, the matter surfaced
again within the walls of the Capitol. But this time the stakes were higher -- nothing less than keeping the
Union together.
There were several points at issue:
The United States had recently acquired a vast territory -- the result of its war with Mexico. Should the territory
allow slavery, or should it be declared free? Or maybe the inhabitants should be allowed to choose for
themselves?
California -- a territory that had grown tremendously with the gold rush of 1849, had recently petitioned
Congress to enter the Union as a free state. Should this be allowed? Ever since the Missouri Compromise, the
balance between slave states and free states had been maintained; any proposal that threatened this balance
would almost certainly not win approval.
There was a dispute over land: Texas claimed that its territory extended all the way to Santa Fe.
Finally, there was Washington, D.C. Not only did the nation's capital allow slavery, it was home to the largest
slave market in North America.
On January 29, 1850, the 70-year-old Clay presented a compromise. For eight months members of Congress,
led by Clay, Daniel Webster, Senator from Massachusetts, and John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina,
debated the compromise. With the help of Stephen Douglas, a young Democrat from Illinois, a series of bills
that would make up the compromise were ushered through Congress.
According to the compromise, Texas would relinquish the land in dispute but, in compensation, be given 10
million dollars -- money it would use to pay off its debt to Mexico. Also, the territories of New Mexico, Nevada,
Arizona, and Utah would be organized without mention of slavery. (The decision would be made by the
territories' inhabitants later, when they applied for statehood.) Regarding Washington, the slave trade would be
abolished in the District of Columbia, although slavery would still be permitted. Finally, California would be
admitted as a free state. To pacify slave-state politicians, who would have objected to the imbalance created
by adding another free state, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed.
Of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial. It
required citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It denied a fugitive's right to a jury trial. (Cases
would instead be handled by special commissioners -- commissioners who would be paid $5 if an alleged
fugitive were released and $10 if he or she were sent away with the claimant.) The act called for changes in
filing for a claim, making the process easier for slaveowners. Also, according to the act, there would be more
federal officials responsible for enforcing the law.
For slaves attempting to build lives in the North, the new law was disaster. Many left their homes and fled to
Canada. During the next ten years, an estimated 20,000 blacks moved to the neighboring country. For Harriet
Jacobs, a fugitive living in New York, passage of the law was "the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored
population." She stayed put, even after learning that slave catchers were hired to track her down. Anthony
Burns, a fugitive living in Boston, was one of many who were captured and returned to slavery. Free blacks,
too, were captured and sent to the South. With no legal right to plead their cases, they were completely
defenseless.
Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act made abolitionists all the more resolved to put an end to slavery. The
Underground Railroad became more active, reaching its peak between 1850 and 1860. The act also brought
the subject of slavery before the nation. Many who had previously been ambivalent about slavery now took a
definitive stance against the institution.
The Compromise of 1850 accomplished what it set out to do -- it kept the nation united -- but the solution was
only temporary. Over the following decade the country's citizens became further divided over the issue of
slavery. The rift would continue to grow until the nation itself divided.
Document 2, Anthony Burns captured
1854
As a slave owned by Charles Suttle of Alexandria, Virginia, Anthony Burns had many privileges. He was
allowed to hire himself out. He supervised the hiring out of four other slaves owned by Suttle. He had the
freedom to take on additional jobs, as long as he paid his master a fee. He joined a church, where he became
a preacher. He learned to read and write. Still, Anthony Burns was not content. At an early age he had learned
that "there [was] a Christ who came to make us free" and felt "the necessity for freedom of soul and body." In
1854, he took steps to find freedom. While working in Richmond, Burns boarded a ship heading north, to the
city of Boston.
Burns arrived in Boston in March -- a fugitive, but free. This new-found freedom, however, would be short-lived.
Soon after his arrival he sent a letter to his brother, who was also a slave of Charles Suttle. Even though the
letter was sent by way of Canada, it found its way into the hands of their master.
A few years earlier, Suttle could have expected little help from a northern state in recovering a fugitive slave.
Nine states had personal liberty laws declaring that they would not cooperate with the federal government in
the recapturing of slaves. But with the recent passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, a component of the
Compromise of 1850, the law was on Suttle's side.
Suttle travelled to Boston to claim his "property," and on May 24, under the pretext of being charged for
robbery, Burns was arrested. Boston abolitionists, vehemently opposed to the Slave Act, rallied to aid Burns,
who was being held on the third floor of the federal courthouse. Two separate groups met at the same time to
discuss Burn's recapture: a large group, consisting mainly of white abolitionists, met at Fanueil Hall; a smaller
group, mostly blacks, met in the basement of the Tremont Temple.
The meeting at the Tremont Temple was quickly over. Those present decided to march to the courthouse and
release Burns, using force if necessary. The meeting at Fanueil Hall lasted much longer. The group there
debated the course of action. When the intentions of the Tremont Temple gathering were announced,
however, the meeting abruptly ended. About two hundred citizens left Fanueil Hall and headed to the
courthouse.
The crowd outside the courthouse quickly grew from several hundred to about two thousand. A small group of
blacks, led by white minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, charged the building with a beam they used as a
battering ram. They succeeded in creating a small opening, but only for a moment. A shot was fired. A deputy
shouted out that he had been stabbed, then died several minutes later. Higginson and a black man gained
entry, but were beaten back outside by six to eight deputies.
Boston inhabitants had successfully aided re-captured slaves in the past. In 1851, a group of black men
snatched a fugitive slave from a courtroom and sent her to Canada. Anthony Burns would not share the same
fate. Determined to see the Fugitive Slave Act enforced, President Franklin Pierce ordered marines and
artillery to assist the guards watching over Burns. Pierce also ordered a federal ship to return Burns to Virginia
after the trial.
Burns was convicted of being a fugitive slave on June 2, 1854. That same day, an estimated 50,000 lined the
streets of Boston, watching Anthony Burns walk in shackles toward the waterfront and the waiting ship.
A black church soon raised $1300 to purchase Burns' freedom. In less than a year Anthony Burns was back in
Boston.
Document 3, Fugitive Slave Advertisement
Text: MAN
KIDNAPPED!
A PUBLIC MEETING AT
FANEUIL HALL!
WILL BE HELD
THIS FRIDAY EVEN'G,
May 26th, at 7 o'clock,
To secure justice for A MAN CLAIMED AS A SLAVE by a
VIRGINIA
KIDNAPPER!
And NOW IMPRISONED IN BOSTON COURT HOUSE,
in
defiance of the Laws of Massachusetts, Shall be plunged
into the Hell of Viginia Slavery by a Massachusetts Judge
of Probate!
BOSTON, May 26, 1854
Two days after Anthony Burns' capture on May 24, 1854, notices such as this one began to appear on
Boston's streets. The notice pictured here announces a meeting at Faneuil Hall, sponsored by the Boston
Vigilance Committee, where a course of action would be determined.
Document 4, Interpretation of Anthony Burns
In compliance with the recently enacted Fugitive Slave Act, Anthony Burns
was ordered by the court on June 2, 1854 to be returned to slavery in
Virginia. An estimated 50,000 outraged citizens lined the streets of Boston
as an army of soldiers escorted Burns to the waterfront.
This engraving depicts the scene of Burns' march. Men in a window, along
with the angry mob outside and on top of the surrounding buildings, shout
out "Kidnappers!"
Image Credit: The Granger Collection, New York
Document 5, Political Cartoon
Document 6, historical interpretations
Eric Foner on the Fugitive Slave Act
Professor of History
Columbia University
Q: Please discuss the effects of the Fugitive Slave Law in the North.
A: The issue of fugitive slaves in a sense became one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of the
Abolitionist Movement. The Constitution has a clause stating that fugitives from labor (slaves) must be sent
back to the South if captured in the North. And this gave slavery what we call extra-territoriality. That is, it made
slavery a national institution. Even though the northern states could abolish slavery, as they did, they still could
not avoid their Constitutional obligation to enforce the slave laws of the southern states. A fugitive slave carried
with him the legal status of slavery, even into a territory which didn't have slavery.
Now, many of the states didn't do much about this. And that's why the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was
enacted, which made the federal government responsible for tracking down and apprehending fugitive slaves
in the North, and sending them back to the South. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, you might say, was the
most powerful exercise of federal authority within the United States in the whole era before the Civil War.
And it's a very odd thing that a region, the South, which supposedly believed in states' rights and local
autonomy, pressed for this law which allowed the federal government to completely override the legal
processes in the North: to send marshals in, to avoid the local courts, and to just seize people (they might be
free born) and just drag them into the South as slaves. It shows that the South didn't believe in states' rights. It
believed in slavery. States' rights was a defense of slavery. But when active federal power was needed to
defend slavery, they were perfectly happy to utilize that also.
The Fugitive Slave Law had many features which seemed to violate the liberties of free white northerners. It
allowed the federal government to deputize citizens, even against their will, and force them to take part in
posses or other groups to seize fugitive slaves. It also said that local courts could not adjudicate whether a
person was a slave or not. It was federal commissioners who would come in and hear testimony. And the slave
was not allowed to testify. It was the testimony of the owner, or the person who claimed to be the owner, of this
alleged fugitive. And the commissioner would judge whether the owner's testimony was believable or not, and
then send -- as they usually did -- the person back to slavery.
So the Fugitive Slave Law, uh, was a very powerful instrument. It was utilized to gather up quite a few slaves,
escaped slaves, or perhaps people who weren't slaves at all, who were free born, and send them back to the
South.
Another thing is that it inspired quite a few thousand free Negroes in the North to flee to Canada. We usually
think of the United States as an asylum for liberty, of people fleeing oppression elsewhere in the world to come
to the United States. It's a little jarring to remember that there were thousands of free born Americans who fled
to Canada because their freedom could no longer be taken for granted within the United States.
Fugitive slaves had a tremendous impact on the development of the anti-slavery movement. First of all, a
number of fugitives became very prominent abolitionist leaders and speakers. The most famous is Frederick
Douglass, who escaped from Maryland. But there were quite a few others, [including] Henry Highland Garnet.
They were living embodiments of the reality of slavery. When Douglass got up and talked about his life as a
slave, it was hard to dismiss him as just a do-good-ing northern liberal who really didn't understand the
situation in the South, as many southerners would claim. These are people who had experienced slavery
firsthand.
But then the whole process of, under the Fugitive Slave Law, of the federal government seizing people
galvanized opinion in the North in a way that the abstract question of slavery may not have done. You could
think what you wanted about slavery hundreds of miles away, but when a individual comes to your community,
a black individual fleeing marshals who are going to try to grab him and send him back to slavery, it puts
slavery on a human level. It made people have to choose, am I going to abide by the law, or am I going to help
this fellow human being who's in trouble? And many people who were not abolitionists at all felt they could not
cooperate with the Fugitive Slave Law. And often it was violently resisted by people who were otherwise lawabiding citizens.
Eric Foner
Document Questions: The Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act
Directions: Answer the questions that accompany each document (whether is be a primary source, secondary source, or
a photograph or cartoon).
Document 1:
1. Who proposed the Missouri Compromise in 1820 AND the Compromise of 1850?
2. Why did California’s territory grow quickly in population?
3. Terms of the compromise:
a. What will happen in regards to the slavery question in the New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and
Utah territories?
b. What would change in regards to slavery in Washington D.C.?
c. What will happen to California?
d. What was added to the compromise to make Southern states satisfied?
4. What was the most controversial part of the Compromise? WHY?
5. What happened to the abolition movement in response to the Compromise?
Document 2:
1. Describe Anthony Burns’ life as a slave.
2. How did Burns’ owner find out he was in Boston?
3. How did Boston abolitionists react to this situation?
4. Why did people in Boston have to help re-capture Burns (and other fugitive slaves)?
Document 3-5:
1. What group wrote the notice in this document set? (Slave Advertisement)
2. What was Burns’ march? Why were people marching? (Burns image)
3. Explain the MEANING of the political cartoon. (Anti-Slavery Almanac)
4. From whose perspective is the cartoon drawn from? (Anti-Slavery Almanac)
Document 6:
1. What does the historian (Eric Foner) mean when he says that the Fugitive Slave Law gave slavery
“extra-territoriality?”
2. How did this law force northern free states to acknowledge the institution of slavery?
3. How does the Fugitive Slave Law signify a strong use of federal government power?
4. What is ironic, according to this historian? (think about states rights and slavery)
5. How does this historian support his argument that the South’s real “issue” was slavery, not states
rights?
6. How did the Fugitive Slave law force everyone to face the issue of slavery?
MAIN IDEA: Summary Questions. Answer the following questions in a paragraph, using complete
sentences!
Why was the country forced to compromise again over the slavery issue? What are the main points of the
Compromise? What were the lasting effects of the Compromise of 1850?