The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed the capture and return of fugitive slaves to their rightful owners within the territories of the United States. It was one of the five acts included in the Compromise of 1850.
According to the US Census the number of slaves reported as fugitives in free states in 1850 was 1,011. That number represented 1 in 3,165 slaves. The annual loss to slaveholders had increased over the years which was exacerbated by the north’s reluctance to return runaways. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 replaced the weakened fugitive Slave Act of 1793 which faced increased resistance from northern states. The new act added provisions for harsher punishment and fines for those who interfered in the capture of a runaway slave as well as gave incentives to those who captured escapees.
African sales sites in Washington DC. Click on image to enlarge.
The 1793 and 1850 Fugitive Slave Acts were controversial laws. The earlier law was mostly ignored in the north and many states passed Personal Liberty Laws. Under this law alleged runaway slaves were subjected to a jury trial before being sent back to their owners and local jails were not allowed to be used for fugitive slaves. Other states forbade the use of state officials in their capture.
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was designed to strengthen the previous law by making federal marshals and other officials responsible for capturing fugitive slaves, those failing to do so were subjected to a fine of $1000. Officials who captured a slave received a bonus. Providing shelter and food was breaking the law and punished with a maximum fine of $1000 and up to a 6 month jail term.
This law threatened the freedom of free and fugitive blacks alike as all slave hunters had to do was to declare orally before a federal or state judge that the escapee was a slave. It was mostly assumed that all blacks were runaways. The suspected fugitive could be arrested and extradited without warrant, had no right to a jury and to defend themselves in court. Many free blacks and fugitives fled to Canada.
The Fugitive Law became a weapon for abolitionists in the north such as fugitive slave Frederick Douglass who became a prominent antislavery leader and later a civil rights leader.
Both laws were officially repealed in 1864.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States, and Who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offense against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by the virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled “An Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States” shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.