|
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW in the Eastern Ohio Valley by LARRY GARA The fugitive slave law of 1850 was an essential part of the sectional compro- mise of that year.1 As such it had ramifications that went far beyond the mere question of returning runaway bondsmen to their southern claimants. At times the symbolic significance of the enactment overshadowed its real impact on the lives of those whom it touched. Nevertheless there were some Americans of the 1850's who viewed the law as concerned primarily with the return of fugitive slaves, and some later historians have also accepted that point of view. "This law," said the Pittsburgh Gazette in October of 1850, "was doubtless drawn up with only one specific object in view--that of recapturing and returning to his owner, in the most summary manner, the fugitive slave." Calling attention to the law's harsh nature, the editorial continued, "In the pursuit of this object the most sacred rights, and the simplest dictates of human wisdom, were overlooked and disregarded."2 NOTES ARE ON PAGES 170 171 |
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 117
Despite the frequent repetition of
similar sentiments, the fugitive slave
law, in the Ohio Valley as elsewhere,
became the focal point of an extra-
ordinarily complex issue, which held
widely different meanings for the
various groups and individuals living in
the region. Among those whose
vital interests the law affected were
the slaveholders and non-slaveholders
who lived south of the river, the free
Negroes and fugitive slaves in Ohio,
and other valley states of the North,
the officials of the United States govern-
ment who were pledged to enforce the
law, the abolitionists, and leaders
of the various political parties, who
had to bear the brunt of the pressures
from all the others involved. The law
meant many things to the Americans
of the Ohio Valley and its meaning was
largely determined by the vantage
point from which it was viewed.
Those who lived in the slave states
south of the Ohio River, like their
fellow countrymen in the North, failed
to agree about the nature of the
fugitive slave problem or the wisdom of
the law. The majority of runaway
slaves who fled north were from border
states, and, although there was no
real danger of a mass exodus of
bondsmen, slave owners from those states
did face a practical problem. The
proximity of the free states and the
presence of abolitionists appeared to
some Kentuckians, for example, to be
the cause of much of their difficulty.
"Our slaves, not only singly but in
droves," commented a group of
Kentucky slaveholders in 1850, "are pirated
and purloined from us, into other
States, and there protected by laws, by
mobs and violence, in violation of the
spirit and the letter of the Constitution
of the Union." Henry Clay agreed.
"Of all the States in the Union, unless
it be the State of Virginia, the State
of which I am a citizen suffers most by
the escape of slaves to adjoining
States."3 When South Carolina's Senator
Andrew P. Butler marshaled support for a
new fugitive slave law, he
alleged that slave property worth
$30,000 was "abstracted from Kentucky
annually, by persons who inveigle the
slaves from the borders of Kentucky."
Butler also alluded to the
constitutional implications of the question. "It is
an invasion of recognized constitutional
rights by those who ought to respect
them," he said.4
While there was considerable--though not
unanimous--agreement on the
latter point in the South, the exact
number of fugitive slaves and the role
of abolitionist encouragement to run
away were far from proved. A fugitive
slave, if determined in his flight, was
a poor risk and a bad example to
others even when he was recaptured. The
market value of those known to
be habitual runaways was very low, and
the expense of capturing a slave
was sometimes more than he was worth.
Sympathy for fugitive slaves was
118 OHIO HISTORY
not uncommon and some who were
slaveholders themselves did not consider
it their business to return other
people's Negroes.5 It was not the practical
problem of returning fugitive slaves
that made the issue so heated but rather
the raising of it to an abstract
principle. In the North the fugitive slave law
became a symbol of southern aggression
and flouting of civil liberties; in
the South, it became the measure of
northern willingness to assume the pro-
tection of that section's basic rights.
One southern writer maintained that
it was "as much for the sake of
having the right recognized, as of enforcing
it, that impelled the South to make the
fugitive slave law a sine qua non of
the Compromise measures."
"They insist on the law," wrote a northern
Democrat, "because it is
constitutional, because in executing it we give them
assurance that we are willing and able
to abide by our constitutional engage-
ments, and are not disposed to abuse the
power of the federal government
now passing once for all, into our
hands."6
As incidents concerning alleged fugitive
slaves multiplied, many south-
erners saw in northern opposition to the
fugitive slave law clear proof that
their fears were well founded. The North
would no longer protect southern
property or southern rights. At times
the angry slaveholders called attention
to the value of southern business and
threatened economic retaliation if
things did not change. In 1857 a
Maysville newspaper commented: "The
constant intermeddling of free negroes
and some fanatical white persons
at Cincinnati, . . . with the slave
property of the South, is fast giving that
city a reputation that her enterprising
merchants will feel in the loss of much
valuable trade." The editor of the Cincinnati
Enquirer, too, was very much
aware that the city was "acquiring
an unenviable reputation as a depot for
the assemblage and collection of
fugitive slaves," a fact which would by no
means increase Cincinnati's popularity
with the states to the south. The
"pestiferous abolition agitators
and demagogues" damaged the best interests
of the city when they outraged "all
the laws of comity and good neighbor-
hood" and also violated a
"solemn constitutional compact." The editor was
confident that the majority of citizens
in Cincinnati did not approve the
"forays upon the property of their
neighbors in Kentucky," and deplored
the thought that they would have to
suffer for the acts of a few, which they
entirely disapproved. They would
cordially approve vigorous government
efforts to put down the
"Negro-Underground-Railroad thieving," he re-
marked, which was such a reproach to
their "good name as neighbors and
sister States in a common Union."7
Even in Kentucky, however, there existed
sentiments in opposition to the
fugitive slave law, or at least such
sentiments existed and were openly ex-
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 119
pressed in 1851. In the spring of that
year nine citizens of Lewis County,
representing the non-slaveholding class,
objected to a former governor's
statement that Kentuckians would be
unanimous in regarding a repeal of
the fugitive slave law as a dissolution
of the Union. These citizens denied
that the opinion of some of the state's
31,000 slaveholders could represent
the opinion of 600,000 non-slaveholders.
The group resolved that so far as
its members were informed,
"intelligent and influential non-slaveholders
regard the Fugitive Slave Bill as
unconstitutional and anti-Christian." The
admiration they felt for free
institutions convinced them that the North
would remain firm in its purpose to
repeal the bill in a legal manner, "and
that it will be as much opposed at the
South as at the North when the light
shines as abundantly here as it does
there."8
Although opinion north of the Ohio River
was also diverse, there was
little disagreement among the colored
residents, both fugitive slaves and
free Negroes. To them the law presented
a serious threat, and when it was
first passed some felt that they were in
imminent danger of enslavement.
The insecurity produced by the new
legislation created near panic among
the Negroes of the valley region. Many
considered flight to Canada, and
in the fall of 1850 there was a mass
exodus of Negroes from Pittsburgh.
A number of small groups left in September,
and the Pittsburgh Gazette
commented, "The passage of this law
will have the effect of banishing the
great majority of the escaped slaves to
the British Possessions, where, at
last, they can look on themselves as freemen,
and meet on equal terms those
who before held them in bondage."
By early October three hundred had
fled from Pittsburgh and Allegheny City,
but the migration gradually slowed
down.9 As it became apparent
that the fears of the Negroes were not well
founded, they began to use other methods
than flight to gain their ends.
One mass meeting of colored citizens
passed a resolution urging officials to
resign rather than enforce the fugitive
slave law. The Negroes hoped that
no qualified person in Pittsburgh could
be found "so far beneath the level
of a gentleman, . . . to act as Slave
Catching Commissioner for Southern
nabobs, who despise doing the miserably
mean dirty work for themselves."
Some of the colored people went so far
as to arm and form militia com-
panies to protect themselves against the
dangers posed by the terrifying
law.10
A number of abolitionists believed the
hysteria unwarranted. Thomas
Garrett told William Lloyd Garrison that
he doubted very much if there
would be more arrested under the new law
than under the old, because of
an increase in the number of those who
were willing to give shelter and
120 OHIO HISTORY
protection to the fugitives. Another
Quaker abolitionist told a Friends
meeting he did not think the Negroes'
danger "was much increased" by
the new law and "advised Friends to
counsel them to quietness and for-
bearance." The abolitionists of
Salem, Ohio, also believed the panic was
unnecessary.11
Subsequent events tended to confirm the
correctness of those who pre-
dicted that the 1850 law would add very
little insecurity to the lives of
colored people in the North. Only a
small number of fugitive slaves were
arrested and returned to slavery under
the terms of the 1850 act. The total
for the United States was probably not
much more than two hundred, and
about eighteen of those were in the
eastern Ohio Valley.12 In addition, there
were several attempted arrests which
failed because of the interference of
outsiders and at least two cases in
which the alleged fugitives were found
to be free Negroes and released by the
authorities. The law, though favor-
able to the slave owner, nevertheless
operated on the side of justice on some
occasions where free Negroes were
falsely accused as fugitives.
The rendition of fugitive slaves aroused
considerable interest and varied
reactions among the citizens of the Ohio
Valley. When George Washington
McQuerry, who had lived in Ohio three or
four years and had married a
free Negro while there, was arrested as
a fugitive in Cincinnati in 1853,
both James G. Birney and John Jollife
contested the legality of the proceed-
ings. Justice John McLean heard the
legal arguments but declared the law
constitutional and ordered the fugitive
returned to his master in Kentucky.13
In 1856 the case of Margaret Garner
attracted nationwide attention. She
and seven other fugitives had fled from
Kentucky and were arrested by a
United States marshal's party in a house
near Cincinnati. The deputies fired
several shots and broke into the house.
Upon entering they discovered that
Margaret had killed her ten-year-old
daughter to prevent the child's return
to slavery. Because the woman was under
arrest as a fugitive slave and
also liable for prosecution for murder
by the state, a drawn-out jurisdic-
tional dispute followed. Local
abolitionists supported the move to have
Margaret placed under state rather than
federal custody, but a United States
judge upheld the doctrine of national
supremacy and ordered the fugitives
remanded to Kentucky. Later efforts to
have Margaret returned for trial in
Ohio failed, and the Cincinnati
Enquirer alleged that the move was really
a ruse to get her out of the South and
free her from bondage. Also futile
was a move to prosecute the United
States marshal for contempt of court
because he had failed to produce the
fugitives when requested by the state
court. The pro-Democratic Enquirer rejoiced
when a federal judge upheld
|
the marshal in his pursuit of duty. The decision, commented the Enquirer, "vindicates in becoming terms, and with legal ability and precision, the sovereignty of the United States from outrageous encroachment and viola- tion. With a strong arm it protects an officer of the General Government in the discharge of his duty, whom it was sought to prevent therefrom through the agency of fanaticism, demagogism and ignorance."14 The Garner rendition case was not the only one involving violence. In 1857 a pair of fugitives defended themselves against arrest in Cincinnati, and one of them was fatally wounded in the scuffle.15 An attempt to take three fugitives into custody in Iberia resulted in a riot. Several people were injured, and a mob tore most of the clothing from one of the deputies and threatened to lynch him before permitting him to depart.16 Some other fugitives proved much less difficult to the authorities. After two years in Ohio, Mason Barbour was arrested near Columbus and returned to slavery. According to a newspaper account, "the 'property' expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. He said he had enjoyed two years of freedom, and had worked most of the time, and had not a single five cent piece to show for his services, and could not have any less |
122 OHIO HISTORY
if he worked a life-time for his
master." He was satisfied to return to his
old home "and he went, without a
murmur."17
Mason Barbour was an unusually docile
fugitive. The possibility of
violent resistance, rescues by groups of
free Negroes and abolitionists, and
hampering legal moves probably made
those who were hunting fugitive
slaves prefer taking them quickly, by
force if necessary, and without the
regular legal procedure. Twice as many
fugitives were remanded to slavery
by arbitrary action of slavecatchers or
kidnapping as by the regular legal
channels, and the threat from kidnappers
was greater than from the law.
While the law provided protection for
the free Negro, kidnappers frequently
attempted to force such persons into
slavery. Occasionally kidnappers were
discovered and arrested. In 1860 in
Cincinnati a white man posing as a
steamboat captain tried to entice a
Negro stevedore into a ferryboat, pre-
sumably to take him south. When the
intended victim sensed the situation
and began to run, the pretended captain
pursued him and proclaimed him
a runaway slave. The free Negro was
saved by the intervention of a white
man who recognized him, gave the would-be
abductor a severe trouncing,
and had him arrested on a charge of
attempted kidnapping.l8
The widespread unpopularity of the
fugitive slave law in the North prob-
ably did as much as anything to make
federal law enforcing officers reluctant
to return slaves under its provisions.
The law seemed harsh and unjust,
and many citizens who had little or no
sympathy with the abolitionists
resented that part of it which tried to
elicit their cooperation in returning
fugitives to southern bondage. The fact
that it was a concession to the
South, and was demanded so emphatically
by that section, only added to
northern irritation. At least one
federal deputy marshal in Ohio resigned
rather than execute the odious law, and
even those who supported the law
in principle sometimes objected to
certain of its features or the way it was
being enforced.l9
The Democratic, pro-compromise Cincinnati
Enquirer admitted that the
statute was unjust and urged that some
of its worst features be eliminated.
The provision that testimony of one
witness could send a Negro into slavery
seemed unfair when the alleged fugitive
had no opportunity to prove that
he owed no service to his claimant.
"No man can stand up in the free States
and defend this provision of the
fugitive law," commented the Enquirer,
"and the sooner it is amended the
better." The Democratic paper further
complained that alleged fugitives were
given no time to procure witnesses
on their behalf. The Enquirer later
raised objections when a New York
commissioner, hearing a fugitive slave
case, decided that he had no power
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 123
to compel witnesses to attend a hearing
or to answer questions at the
hearing.20
Some of the extremist acts of the
federal government also caused mis-
givings among the northerners who had
supported the compromise of 1850
as an effort to keep a severely strained
Union together. When land and
naval forces were ordered to Boston to
assure a fugitive's return, the Enquirer
objected; such a show of force was
unnecessary, and the order would only
increase the excitement. After alleged
fugitives were forcibly rescued by
mobs and sent along their way in
Syracuse and in Christiana, Pennsylvania,
the government attempted to prosecute
some of the rescuers for treason.
The Enquirer regretted such
extreme action by the administration. "The
attempt to make treason out of a
resistance to the execution of a law of the
United States in time of peace, is
simply ridiculous," it commented, "and
must bring into contempt the authority
that makes it." 21
Very few northerners supported the
fugitive slave law without reserva-
tions, and the authorities were
extremely reluctant to act in such a way as
to create a large number of antislavery
martyrs. Fewer than fifteen incidents
involving rescues or attempted rescues
of fugitive slaves led to prosecutions
under the law in the entire nation,
though several of these involved a
number of defendants. Cincinnati was the
scene of four such prosecutions.
In 1857 David Waite and James J. Puntney
of Adams County were arrested
and accused of helping eight slaves of a
Kentucky master to escape. Puntney
was released after a hearing before the
United States commissioner in
Cincinnati, and Waite was tried and
freed when the jury could not agree
as to his guilt. The alleged owner of
the slaves gave such contradictory
testimony that he was brought before the
commissioner on a charge of
perjury, though later acquitted.22
In 1857 an attempt to arrest a fugitive
slave named Addison in Champaign
County touched off an involved legal
dispute between United States and
Ohio officials. Addison himself escaped,
but when the United States
marshals tried to arrest four white men
who had allegedly assisted him,
there followed several armed clashes
between the marshals and a sheriff's
posse. Before the squabble ended the
federal authorities had arrested
some members of the sheriff's posse for
violating the fugitive slave law,
and Ohio had arrested the marshal and
his deputies for contempt of a state
court and assault. United States
District Judge Humphrey H. Leavitt
decided that the marshals were wholly
justified in ignoring state writs and
added that the fugitive slave law had to
be obeyed regardless of prejudice
against it. After a year of prolonged
wrangling the state dropped charges
|
against the marshals when the federal government agreed to drop its charges against the sheriffs.23 The prosecution of William M. Connelly in 1858 attracted far more attention than any of the others tried in the Queen City. The previous year two fugitive slaves had been found in a room rented by Connelly, who was a member of the staff of the Cincinnati Commercial. The arrest of the fugi- tives involved a deadly struggle, in which several deputies were wounded and one of the slaves was seriously hurt. The slaves were remanded and Connelly avoided arrest by leaving the city. The following year he was arrested in New York and returned to Cincinnati for trial.24 From beginning to end the Connelly case provided dramatic material for newspaper copy. The courtroom was crowded and prosecutor Stanley Matthews had to contend with a defense team composed of ex-governor Thomas Corwin and ex-judge John B. Stallo. Rumors that the trial would "make very curious revelations with regard to the Underground Railroad" in Cincinnati heightened interest in the proceedings, though no such revela- tions were forthcoming. The trial lasted several days. Connelly was con- victed, fined, and sentenced to twenty days in jail.25 By the time he entered the jail Connelly was a famous antislavery martyr. |
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 125
Groups of visitors flocked to his cell,
including delegates from Methodist
and Unitarian conventions meeting in the
city. The prisoner was so popular
that his jailer finally decided to leave
his cell door unlocked in order to
facilitate the matter of ushering in
visitors. When Connelly's brief ordeal
ended, Cincinnati's turner society
arranged a mammoth celebration of his
release, complete with parade and a mass
meeting, at which the former
prisoner gave the major address.
Republican politicians and the abolitionists
made excellent propaganda use of
Connelly's imprisonment.26
To the abolitionists the fugitive slave
law gave new ammunition for
their propaganda war against the
peculiar institution of the South. With
the intensification of sectional
differences and the abolitionist appeal to the
cause of civil liberties they gained a
large audience previously unreceptive
to their message. Those abolitionists
who were providing tangible aid to
fugitives on their way to Canada
continued their work with little or no
interference. Levi Coffin, the organizer
of such activity in the Cincinnati
area, often kept fugitives in his house
"openly, . . . without any fear of
being molested." Wives of
abolitionists and other women who sympathized
with the cause volunteered for work in
sewing circles which provided clothing
for the destitute fugitives going
through the city.27
Far more abolitionists indicated a
willingness to aid the fleeing slaves
than actually rendered such assistance.
After 1850 antislavery meetings
invariably passed anti-fugitive slave
law resolutions framed in strong and
uncompromising language. The Garrisonian
Western Anti-Slavery Society
meeting in Salem, Ohio, in the fall of
1850 resolved that the newly passed
law was "but a stronger
demonstration of the unjust, inhuman, God-denying
character of the American Constitution
and Union" and avowed their
"determination to treat it, and its
authors with deserved contempt, and the
government from which it emanated with
abhorrence and execration." In
obedience to the "higher and divine
law" they further resolved to "en-
courage the poor bondmen and bondwomen
to escape from their masters
by offering them shelter, protection,
concealment, or any other aid or
comfort in our power to afford
them." 28
A group meeting at Senecaville in
November 1850 passed similar resolu-
tions and declared "that we will
not obey the requirements of that law,
but will trample them with scorn,
contempt and indignity, beneath our feet."
They characterized the northern
congressmen who had voted for the law as
"traitors to God, liberty, and the
dearest rights of man" and "unfit to
make laws for any people or nation,
either christian or heathen." "Their
names," they said, "should be
handed down to posterity branded with
126 OHIO HISTORY
disgrace and eternal infamy." The Enquirer's
editor commented that he
"did not suppose that such crazy
people . . . existed in any part of Southern
Ohio." 29
The return of George Washington McQuerry
to slavery in 1853 inspired
even stronger comment. That summer the
Western Anti-Slavery Society
resolved: "That it is a mockery of
truth, and an insult to the commonest
understanding to call Ohio a free State,
while a husband and father, innocent
of crime, may be seized by foreign
ruffians in his own house, dragged from
his wife and helpless infants, . . .
incarcerated in our jails, and driven
heavily manacled through the streets of
our Queen City"--all "sanctioned
and confirmed by the supreme law of the
land.30
Besides rendering direct aid to fugitive
slaves and passing resolutions
against the hated law, abolitionists
used legal measures to attempt to free
slaves passing through Ohio with their
masters. Most such attempts failed,
but all of them attracted attention to
the problem of slaves in the free
states at a time when northerners began
to envision a slavocratic conspiracy
to open all American territory to
slavery. The most famous of such cases
was that of a sixteen-year-old slave,
Rosetta Armstead, who came into Ohio
with a friend of her master, who was
taking her from Louisville to Virginia.
While she was in Columbus a group of
abolitionists and Negroes informed
her that Ohio was a free state, and the
sheriff took her to court on a writ
of habeas corpus. When Rosetta told the
court she wished to be free, the
judge pronounced her free and appointed
a guardian for her. Rosetta was
later arrested under the fugitive slave
law, but after an involved legal tangle
she regained her freedom when the United
States commissioner decided
against her master.31
In 1855 the slave Celeste was freed on a
writ of habeas corpus in
Cincinnati. She had been brought there
by her master, who deserted her
without paying her steamboat passage
from New Orleans, and won her
freedom after she told the court her
master had taken her north for the
purpose of freeing her.32 Several
other slaves were denied freedom in the
state courts, and some of them openly
stated that they preferred to return
to slavery rather than remain in Ohio.33
In 1860 the abolitionists lost a
fight to free a twelve-year-old slave
whose master was taking him to Missouri
on a steamboat. The court ruled that the
stopping of boats at a landing
was incidental to the right of free
navigation, and Ohio law could not
apply in such a case. The court
remarked, as the Enquirer put it, "that, while
we should carefully maintain our own
rights, yet the Courts must also see
to it that the rights of our neighbors
were not infringed." 34
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 127
The abolitionists who spearheaded these
legal moves were a small minority
in the Ohio Valley. The Enquirer once
estimated that they totaled no more
than a thousand in Hamilton County, and
when a southern paper referred
to a state "as strongly tinctured
with Abolitionism as Ohio," the editor
accused his southern colleagues of
ignorance of the true state of affairs.
It was, he retorted, "a few
indefatigable ultras" making a "loud noise
and din," when "in truth, not
one man in one thousand has any sympathy
with them, much less connection or
agency." 35 While the indignant editor
was literally correct, the southern
paper had not wholly missed the mark.
The fugitive slave issue did enable the
abolitionists to influence the thinking
of many who had no overt connection or
sympathy with the antislavery
movement. It was their most effective
propaganda issue and they used it
constantly after 1850.
At the same time the abolitionists found
the fugitive issue so useful for
their purposes, politicians found it
irksome and explosive, especially after
the Republicans replaced the Whigs as
one of the nation's two leading
parties. Democratic and Whig leaders
recognized the importance of the
compromise of 1850 as a last desperate
measure to prevent the disruption
of the Union, though they also had to
take account of popular resentment
against the fugitive slave law in large
sections of the North. Eventually
the Democrats staked their cause on
preserving the compromise and the
newly organized Republicans on an appeal
to northern pride and interests.
In their early years the Republicans, as
a new party in opposition to the
Democratic national administration, placed
considerable emphasis on states'
rights. The Republican-dominated Ohio
legislature of 1855-56 not only
urged the repeal of the fugitive slave
law but also passed a habeas corpus
act to make its enforcement more
difficult. This was actually an attempt to
interfere with the execution of a
federal law in Ohio. Local Republican
spokesmen endorsed the states' rights
policy. In 1857 the Republican Xenia
News criticized the law and maintained that the people of
Champaign County
and the rest of Ohio would not permit
enforcement of the measure. "The
force of that law's infamous
provisions is about done in Ohio." the
paper
commented flatly. Such language brought
a sharp retort from the Democrats,
whose leading Cincinnati organ pointed
out "that the entire Black-Republican
party of Ohio," leaders and rank
and file, had labored to make the fugitive
slave law "obnoxious and infamous,
so that it will become inoperative and
virtually be repealed, without the
interference of Congress." Commenting
on the Republicans' personal liberty
laws, the Democratic editor asserted
that the Republicans were "the
enemies of the Constitution." He arrived at
128 OHIO HISTORY
that conclusion because the
constitution, which was the supreme law of the
land, imposed an obligation in relation
to fugitive slaves which the Republi-
cans disregarded and did all in their
power to render inoperative.36
Some aspirants for political offices
were directly affected by their views
on the fugitive slave law and its
enforcement in Ohio.37 In 1859 Chief
Justice Joseph R. Swan, who had a
radical anti-Nebraska record, lost the
nomination for reelection because he had
upheld the prosecution of the
rescuers in the Oberlin-Wellington
rescue cases when they came before the
state tribunal. With the support of a
strong antislavery delegation from the
Western Reserve, the Republican
convention snubbed Swan and nominated
William Y. Gholson of Cincinnati, whose
supporters assured the delegates
that he was sound on the fugitive
question. Later evidence published by the
Democrats seemed to prove Gholson far
from sympathetic with the abolition-
ists. Nevertheless, he defeated his
Democratic opponent in a campaign which
revolved largely around the fugitive
slave law issue.38 It is difficult to tell
just how the candidates' positions on
the fugitive slave law influenced the
election, but the explosive nature of
the question undoubtedly contributed
to the emotional emphasis in state and
national politics in the 1850's.
Little did those congressmen who voted
for the fugitive slave law of 1850
realize the many ramifications that law
would have. As an amendment to
one of the nation's first statutes and a
supplement to a clause of the consti-
tution it seemed only to provide slave
owners with additional protection for
their peculiar type of property. But in
the Ohio Valley and in other parts
of the nation the new measure
contributed greatly to the increase in mis-
understanding between the sections. Few
slaves were remanded from the
valley and even fewer abolitionists were
prosecuted for helping slaves
escape, yet the impact of the law proved
much greater than the numbers
involved. To the residents south of the
river, the Negroes, the officials, the
abolitionists, and the office seekers,
the law posed new problems or presented
new opportunities. It was one of a
number of factors which molded opinion
and convinced northern residents of the
valley that they and others living
on free soil had a way of life superior
to that of their southern neighbors,
and that if necessary they would prove
that superiority by force of arms.
THE AUTHOR: Larry Gara, an associate
professor of history at Wilmington
College, is
the author of The Liberty Line: The
Legend
of the Underground Railroad.
|
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW in the Eastern Ohio Valley by LARRY GARA The fugitive slave law of 1850 was an essential part of the sectional compro- mise of that year.1 As such it had ramifications that went far beyond the mere question of returning runaway bondsmen to their southern claimants. At times the symbolic significance of the enactment overshadowed its real impact on the lives of those whom it touched. Nevertheless there were some Americans of the 1850's who viewed the law as concerned primarily with the return of fugitive slaves, and some later historians have also accepted that point of view. "This law," said the Pittsburgh Gazette in October of 1850, "was doubtless drawn up with only one specific object in view--that of recapturing and returning to his owner, in the most summary manner, the fugitive slave." Calling attention to the law's harsh nature, the editorial continued, "In the pursuit of this object the most sacred rights, and the simplest dictates of human wisdom, were overlooked and disregarded."2 NOTES ARE ON PAGES 170 171 |