{"id":1880,"date":"2022-08-17T20:37:32","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T00:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/?page_id=1880"},"modified":"2023-06-23T12:42:58","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T16:42:58","slug":"the-politics-of-fugitive-slaves-oakes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/thematic-essays\/the-politics-of-fugitive-slaves-oakes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Fugitive Slaves by James Oakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Banner image:<\/strong> In August 1850, abolitionists met at Cazenovia, New York to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave bill.\u00a0 Participants included Frederick Douglass (seated), Gerrit Smith (standing behind the table), and freedom seekers Mary and Emily Edmonson (standing beside Douglass, both wearing plaid). (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/48004\">Google Arts &amp; Culture<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/category\/oakes\/\"><strong>See related Timeline entries<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_4811\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Northwest-Ordinance-e1687202426420.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4811\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4811\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Northwest-Ordinance-e1687202426420-300x89.jpeg\" alt=\"NW Ordinance\" width=\"300\" height=\"89\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Northwest-Ordinance-e1687202426420-300x89.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Northwest-Ordinance-e1687202426420.jpeg 497w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4811\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (National Archives)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution guaranteed slaveholders the right to recapture enslaved people who escaped across state lines, regardless of the laws of the state to which they escaped.\u00a0 There had been no need for such a clause in the Articles of Confederation because slavery was legal in all 13 of the American colonies that declared their independence in 1776.\u00a0 Until then, the common law right of recaption ensured that a fugitive was legally subject to recapture no matter which colony he or she escaped to.\u00a0 But by the time the delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the constitutional convention 11 years later, the situation had changed.\u00a0 Slavery was being abolished throughout New England and, perhaps most threateningly, in the large state of Pennsylvania\u2014which shared borders with five states where slavery was still legal.\u00a0 Moreover, even as the delegates were thrashing things out in Philadelphia, the Confederation Congress meeting in New York passed the Ordinance of 1787 or Northwest Ordinance, banning slavery from the northwest territories and, as if in compensation, incorporating the first iteration of the fugitive slave clause.\u00a0 Abolition had created a problem:\u00a0 merely crossing a state or territorial border could bring a fugitive slave into a legal world where freedom rather than slavery was presumed.\u00a0 The political implications were potentially disruptive and so a fugitive slave clause was deemed necessary.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Abolition had created a problem:\u00a0 merely crossing a state or territorial border could bring a fugitive slave into a legal world where freedom rather than slavery was presumed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet almost immediately, it became clear that northern and southern states had a different understanding of what the new Constitution required.\u00a0 In 1788 Pennsylvania passed the first of dozens of northern personal liberty laws protecting Black residents accused of being fugitives.\u00a0 A few years later, in 1793, Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave Act, seemingly signaling the North\u2019s acceptance of the constitutional compromise.\u00a0 By the late 1790s, however, as more and more slaves from southern states escaped into northern states, and as free Black communities emerged to attract and harbor freedom seekers, southerners in Congress called for amendments to strengthen the 1793 statute\u2014amendments which northern congressmen consistently voted down.\u00a0 Nevertheless, by authorizing southern masters to come into the free states and claim their escaped slaves <em>without <\/em>guaranteeing them due process rights, the 1793 act created the potential for legal and political conflict whenever an enslaved person escaped into a free state.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3498\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Garrison.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3498\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3498\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Garrison-250x300.jpg\" alt=\"Garrison headshot, cleanshaven, glasses\" width=\"250\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Garrison-250x300.jpg 250w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Garrison-768x922.jpg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Garrison.jpg 781w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3498\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison helped promote ex-slave orators such as Frederick Douglass (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/12741\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Political conflict accelerated with the rise of radical abolitionism in the 1830s.\u00a0 Among other things, abolitionists actively solicited and published the autobiographies of fugitive slaves, not only exposing the horrors of slavery, but also highlighting the dramatic details of their escapes.\u00a0 Antislavery activists had been sponsoring the publication of such narratives at least since the campaign to abolish the slave trade in the late 1700s.\u00a0 Drawing on that precedent, abolitionists in the late 1830s significantly expanded the number of ex-slave autobiographies they published, part of a deliberate campaign to promote sympathy for the antislavery movement by building sympathy for freedom seekers.\u00a0 These autobiographies are important sources for documenting the experience of slavery, but they were also politically significant because they were published as propaganda\u2014factually accurate as far as we can tell, and for that reason all the more effective as propaganda.\u00a0 Once readers encountered the fugitive\u2019s story \u201cfrom his own lips,\u201d the editors of one such narrative explained, it \u201cwould not be necessary again, for one year at least, to exhort them to active, self-denying effort for the slave.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 That was the point.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4817\" style=\"width: 1590px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4817\" class=\"wp-image-4817 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM.png\" alt=\"Oakes chart\" width=\"1580\" height=\"1010\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM.png 1580w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-1024x655.png 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-768x491.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-1536x982.png 1536w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-900x575.png 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-19-at-3.42.09-PM-1280x818.png 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1580px) 100vw, 1580px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4817\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chart prepared by James Oakes<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The efficacy of the propaganda campaign is hard to judge, but by the 1840s fugitive slaves were clearly becoming a significant issue in national politics.\u00a0 The Supreme Court ruled in <em>Prigg v. Pennsylvania <\/em>(1842) that the federal government was exclusively responsible for enforcing the constitution\u2019s fugitive slave clause.\u00a0 States and localities could assist in renditions, but they were not required to do so.\u00a0 Northern states responded with a raft of new personal liberty laws withholding state and local support for slaveholders trying to capture their escaping slaves.\u00a0 The conflict over fugitive slaves became headline news in 1848 when 77 enslaved people in Washington, DC boarded the <em>Pearl<\/em> schooner<em>\u00a0<\/em>and attempted one of the largest mass escapes in American history.\u00a0 Though the escape was foiled, it provoked a sharp debate on the floor of Congress.\u00a0 As antislavery representatives demanded due process rights for the captives, proslavery congressmen demanded a more effective fugitive slave law.<\/p>\n<p>On January 24, 1850, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler introduced a bill strengthening federal enforcement powers.\u00a0 New York Senator William Seward responded to Butler four days later with an alternative\u2014a series of amendments to the 1793 law that would guarantee jury trials and <em>habeas corpus <\/em>to accused fugitives, in effect a federal personal liberty law.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Maryland Senator Thomas Pratt denounced Seward\u2019s jury trial amendment as \u201ca practical denial of the whole right of the slaveholder over his slave, if he get beyond the jurisdiction of his own State; because everybody knows,\u201d Pratt continued, \u201cthe honorable Senator from New York himself knows\u201d that fugitive slaves were being \u201cdischarged\u201d by New York courts on the flimsiest of pretexts.\u00a0 \u201c[O]f all the subjects doing harm at the South,\u201d Pratt added, \u201cthe escape of fugitive slaves is doing the most harm,\u201d and was \u201cthe most calculated to excite the public mind.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4812\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Compromise-of-1850.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4812\" class=\"wp-image-4812 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Compromise-of-1850.jpg\" alt=\"1850 debates\" width=\"610\" height=\"478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Compromise-of-1850.jpg 610w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Compromise-of-1850-300x235.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4812\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fierce debates over the Compromise of 1850 lasted for months (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/artandhistory\/history\/common\/image\/Compromise_of_1850.htm\">US Senate<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The heated discussion of Butler\u2019s bill takes up 30 pages of the <em>Congressional Globe\u2014<\/em>90 large columns of very small print.\u00a0 After Seward\u2019s attempt to add due process rights to the 1793 law had failed, northern senators across the political spectrum \u2014from conservatives such as Daniel Webster and Robert Winthrop to antislavery radicals such as John Hale and Salmon Chase\u2014 proposed or endorsed similar amendments requiring jury trials and <em>habeas corpus <\/em>in the proposed 1850 law.\u00a0 Every one of those amendments was beaten back even though northern congressmen voted against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by a two-to-one margin.\u00a0 The final version of the enhanced enforcement law squeaked to passage thanks to the minority of northern supporters who voted with a virtually unanimous South.<\/p>\n<p>The reaction across the North was immediate and intense.\u00a0 Weeks after the law was passed the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker thwarted slave catchers and with the help of a local vigilance committee spirited Georgia runaways William and Ellen Craft out of the country.\u00a0 Much of the resistance was the work of free Blacks.\u00a0 A few months after the Crafts\u2019 escape, early in 1851, a group of Black men rescued a formerly enslaved waiter named Shadrach from federal marshals in Boston and got him to Canada.\u00a0 Later that same year, dozens of armed Black men and women shot and killed a Maryland slaveholder and wounded his son as they were trying to recapture their fugitive slaves in Christiana, Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Across much of the North, vigilance committees sprang into action to thwart slave catchers.\u00a0 The federal government\u2019s response to these and other violent incidents was so overbearing that it further politicized the issue.\u00a0 The spectacle of US troops sent to police the streets of Boston, and of US marines rushed to a small town in Pennsylvania, only served to intensify northern hostility to the law.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4813\" style=\"width: 2570px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4813\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4813\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Political cartoon\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1796\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-1024x718.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-768x539.jpg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-1536x1077.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-2048x1436.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-900x631.jpg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/FugSlavelawMain-1280x898.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4813\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northern political cartoon mocking the &#8220;Practical Illustrations&#8221; of the Fugitive Slave Law&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/47884\">Library of Congress<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Despite violent incidents and spectacular crowds\u201450,000 people lined the streets of Boston to protest the 1854 rendition of Anthony Burns\u2014one of the most significant and least appreciated means of preventing fugitives from being returned to slavery was the deliberate refusal to enforce the law in many northern communities.\u00a0 White sheriffs sometimes protected Black families who had lived in their communities for years.\u00a0 Lawyers (who were not supposed to be present) often gummed up the work of rendition hearings.\u00a0 Federal prosecutors could not find many jurors willing to convict those accused of violating the 1850 law.\u00a0 Northern state legislatures passed another round of personal liberty laws, guaranteeing <em>habeas corpus<\/em> and rights to jury trials for accused fugitives, prohibiting state and local police from enforcing the federal law, or banning slave catchers from using local jails to house fugitives.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4814\" style=\"width: 198px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4814\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4814\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-188x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Lincoln\" width=\"188\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-188x300.jpeg 188w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-640x1024.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-768x1229.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-960x1536.jpeg 960w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854-900x1440.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Lincoln-1854.jpeg 1039w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4814\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abraham Lincoln in 1854 (ALPLM)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By the middle of the 1850s just about every politician identified with the new Republican Party was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act.\u00a0 Some denounced it as unconstitutional.\u00a0 Others called for the law\u2019s repeal.\u00a0 Still others, like Abraham Lincoln, wanted it revised to guarantee due process rights for accused fugitives.\u00a0 In 1854 Lincoln said he preferred a statute that \u201cdid not expose a free negro to any more danger of being carried into slavery, than our present criminal laws do an innocent person to the danger of being hung.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 He also objected to the \u201cobnoxious\u201d requirement that northern civilians be required to participate in fugitive slave renditions.\u00a0 In 1859 Lincoln warned that states which seceded from the Union would forfeit the constitutional right to secure the return of fugitives.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 After he was elected in November 1860, Lincoln renewed his call for substantial revisions to the controversial 1850 law, revisions that would have amounted to a federal personal liberty law.\u00a0 Lincoln told fellow Republicans in private that he was willing to guarantee due process rights to suspected fugitives and restrict enforcement to federal officials, absolving northern states and civilians of any obligation to participate in the capture and return of fugitive slaves.<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>By the middle of the 1850s just about every politician identified with the new Republican Party was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lincoln\u2019s secession winter proposal was more likely to inflame than to calm a South already aroused by his mere election.\u00a0 The very first item in South Carolina\u2019s declaration justifying secession listed by name 14 northern states that had passed personal liberty laws.\u00a0 These laws, the Carolinians declared, \u201ceither nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them.\u201d\u00a0 Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia endorsed secession on the ground that slave property was no longer safe within the Union.\u00a0 \u201cWhy remain?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 \u201cWill the Northern States repeal their personal liberty laws?\u00a0 No.\u201d\u00a0 More to the point, the personal liberty laws were but a symptom of a much larger problem, as Alabama secession commissioner Stephen Hale explained to Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky.\u00a0 The Fugitive Slave Act \u201cremains almost a dead letter upon the statute book,\u201d Hale complained.\u00a0 \u201cA majority of the Northern States, through their legislative enactments have openly nullified it, and impose heavy fines and penalties upon all persons who aid in enforcing this law\u2026.\u00a0 The Federal officers who attempt to discharge their duties under the law, as well as the owner of the slave, are set upon by mobs, and are fortunate if they escape without serious injury to life or limb, and the State authorities, instead of aiding in the enforcement of the law, refuse the use of their jails, and by every means which unprincipled fanaticism can devise give countenance to the mob and aid the fugitive to escape.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lincoln responded to these complaints by reiterating his proposal for a federal personal liberty law in his first inaugural address in March 1861.\u00a0 \u201cThere is much controversy about delivering up fugitives from service or labor,\u201d he began.\u00a0 Everyone who swears an oath to the Constitution is of course swearing to uphold the fugitive slave <em>clause<\/em>.\u00a0 The question, Lincoln said, was how the clause was to be upheld.\u00a0 There was disagreement, for example, over who should enforce it.\u00a0 \u201cShall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority?\u201d Lincoln asked.\u00a0 \u201cThe Constitution does not expressly say.\u201d\u00a0 But \u201cin any law upon the subject,\u201d he added, \u201cought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence be introduced, so that a free man may not, in any case, be surrendered as a slave?\u00a0 And might it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause of the Constitution which guaranties that \u2018The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several states?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So long as the 1850 law remained on the books it should be obeyed, Lincoln said, but there are some laws that communities find so morally offensive that they will never be fully obeyed.\u00a0 He conceded that the fugitive slave law, \u201cwas as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 And secession would only make the already lax enforcement of the fugitive slave law even \u201cworse,\u201d Lincoln warned, because \u201cafter the separation of the sections fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But \u201cin any law upon the subject,\u201d [Lincoln] added, \u201cought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence be introduced, so that a free man may not, in any case, be surrendered as a slave?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From the moment some states began abolishing slavery in the late 1700s to the moment slave states began seceding from the Union in late 1860, fugitive slaves had created political problems that ultimately contributed to the coming of the Civil War.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>\u00a0<strong>Further Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Oakes, James.\u00a0<em>The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution<\/em>. New York: W.W. Norton, 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Discussion Questions<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_3491\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3491\" class=\"wp-image-3491 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-888x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Cazenovia full\" width=\"629\" height=\"725\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-888x1024.jpg 888w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-260x300.jpg 260w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-768x886.jpg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-1332x1536.jpg 1332w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-1776x2048.jpg 1776w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-900x1038.jpg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Ezra_Greenleaf_Weld_American_-_Fugitive_Slave_Law_Convention_Cazenovia_New_York_-_Google_Art_Project-1280x1476.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3491\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abolitionists at Cazenovia Convention (1850) (<a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/48004\">Google Arts &amp; Culture<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>How does this famous photograph from the August 1850 protest at Cazenovia, New York illustrate some of James Oakes&#8217;s key contentions about the evolving &#8220;politics of fugitive slaves&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li>What does Oakes mean when he writes that &#8220;Abolition had created a problem&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li>How did northern abolitionists use the fugitive slave crisis to further mobilize antislavery sentiment?<\/li>\n<li>What was Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s position on the fugitive slave crisis, according to historian James Oakes?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cRecollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave,\u201d <em>The Emancipator, <\/em>August 23, September 13, September 20, October 11, and October 18, 1838.\u00a0 Transcript available at http:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/neh\/runaway\/runaway.html<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a> <em>Congressional Globe, <\/em>31 cong., 1<sup>st<\/sup> sess., p. 236.\u00a0 [January 28, 1850]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a> <em>Congressional Globe, <\/em>31 cong., 1<sup>st<\/sup> sess., p. 524.\u00a0 [March 24, 1850]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a> Roy P. Basler, ed., <em>Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln<\/em> (9 vols; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 2: 233n.\u00a0 Hereafter <em>CW.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a> <em>CW, <\/em>3:454.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> <em>CW<\/em> 4: 156-7.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a> <em>Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, <\/em>Ser. 4, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900), 6.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a> <em>CW, <\/em>4:264.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a> <em>CW, <\/em>4:269.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Author Profile<\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Oakes.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2358\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Oakes-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Oakes\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Oakes-240x300.jpeg 240w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Oakes.jpeg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a>JAMES OAKES\u00a0<\/strong>is an American historian and Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. An alumnus of Baruch College, Dr. Oakes holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California\u2013Berkeley. Before coming to the Graduate Center, he taught at Princeton and Northwestern Universities. His pioneering books include\u00a0<em>The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics\u00a0<\/em>(W.W. Norton, 2007); and\u00a0<em>Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861\u20131865\u00a0<\/em>(W.W. Norton, 2012). His most recent book is\u00a0<em>The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution\u00a0<\/em>(W.W. Norton, 2021).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Banner image: In August 1850, abolitionists met at Cazenovia, New York to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave bill.\u00a0 Participants included Frederick Douglass (seated), Gerrit Smith (standing behind the table), and freedom seekers Mary and Emily Edmonson (standing beside Douglass, both wearing plaid). (Google Arts &amp; Culture) Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon) See [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3491,"parent":1607,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-1880","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1881,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1880\/revisions\/1881"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}