Textbook
The 1850 federal fugitive slave law amended an earlier statute from 1793 that had provided for the return of runaway slaves who crossed state lines. The new, tougher measure was an essential component of the so-called Compromise of 1850 because the measure was designed to address longstanding southern complaints about the Underground Railroad. Resistance to the new law, however, soon proved widespread and the measure only further inflamed sectional antagonism. (By Matthew Pinsker)
Note Cards
Events
People
Places
Documents
Images
Bibliography
Chicago Style Entry | Link |
---|---|
Trial of Henry W. Allen, U.S. Deputy Marshall, for Kidnapping, with Arguments of Counsel & Charge of Justice Marvin, on the Constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, in the Supreme Court of New York. Syracuse, NY: Power Press of the Daily Journal Office, 1852. | View Record |
Baker, H. Robert. The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006. | View Record |
Bearse, Austin. Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston. Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880. | View Record |
Brandt, Nat, and Yanna Brandt. In the Shadow of the Civil War: Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. | View Record |
Craft, Ellen, and William Craft. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. London: William Tweedie, 1860. | View Record |
Desmond, Jerry R. "The Attempt to Repeal Maine's Personal Liberty Laws." Maine History 37, no. 4 (1998): 194-209. | View Record |
Finkelman, Paul. "Prigg V. Pennsylvania and Northern State Courts: Anti-Slavery use of a Pro-Slavery Decision." Civil War History 35 (1979): 5-35. | View Record |
Forbes, Ella. "'By My Own Right Arm': Redemptive Violence and the 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania Resistance." Journal of Negro History 83, no. 3 (1998): 159-167. | View Record |
Forbes, Ella. "But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania, Resistance." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 123, no. 3 (1998): 248-250. | View Record |
Gara, Larry. "The Fugitive Slave Law in the Eastern Ohio Valley." Ohio History 73, no. 2 (1963): 116-128. | View Record |
Gara, Larry. "The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox." Civil War History 10, no. 3 (1964): 229-240. | View Record |
Hensel, William Uhler. The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851: An Historical Sketch. Lancaster, PA: The New Era Printing Company, 1911. | View Record |
Jackson, Ruby West, and Walter T. McDonald. Finding Freedom: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Runaway Slave. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007. | View Record |
Johnson, Linck C. "'Liberty Is Never Cheap': Emerson, 'The Fugitive Slave Law,' and the Antislavery Lecture Series at the Broadway Tabernacle." New England Quarterly 76 (December 2003): 550-592. | View Record |
Katz, Jonathan. Resistance at Christiana: The Fugitive Slave Rebellion, Christiana Pennsylvania, September 11, 1851: A Documentary Account. New York: Cromwell, 1974. | View Record |
Landon, Fred. "Anderson Fugitive Case." Journal of Negro History 7, no. 3 (1922): 233-242. | View Record |
Landon, Fred. "The Negro Migration to Canada After the Passing of the Fugitive Slave Act." Journal of Negro History 5, no. 1 (January 1920): 22-36. | View Record |
Leddy, Chuck. "Boston Combusts: The Fugitive Slave Case of Anthony Burns." Civil War Times 46, no. 3 (2007): 50-55. | View Record |
Levy, Leonard W. "Sims' Case: The Fugitive Slave Law in Boston in 1851." Journal of Negro History 35 (January 1950): 39-74. | View Record |
Maginnes, David R. "The Case of the Court House Rioters in the Rendition of the Fugitive Slave Anthony Burns, 1854." Journal of Negro History 56 (January 1971): 31-42. | View Record |
May, Samuel J. The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims. New York: American Antislavery Society, 1856. | View Record |
Preston, Emmett D. "The Fugitive Slave Acts in Ohio." Journal of Negro History 28, no. 4 (1943): 422-477. | View Record |
Shapiro, Samuel. "The Rendition of Anthony Burns." Journal of Negro History 44 (January 1959): 34-51. | View Record |
Shipherd, Jacob R., Ralph Plumb, and Henry Everard Peck. History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1859. | View Record |
Smith, Earl. "William Cooper Nell on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850." Journal of Negro History 66 (1981): 37-40. | View Record |
Spooner, Lysander. A Defence for Fugitive Slaves against the Acts of Congress of February 12, 1793, and September 18, 1850. Boston: Bela Marsh, 1850. | View Record |
Varon, Elizabeth R. Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. | View Record |
Yanuck, Julius. "The Garner Fugitive Slave Case." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 40, no. 1 (June 1953): 47-66. | View Record |