The Fugitive Slave Acts were two federal laws that concerned runaway slaves in the United States. The two acts were passed in 1793 and in 1850. They required federal involvement in catching runaway slaves in Northern States. The laws were designed to protect Southern slave owners. They required those states and jurisdictions to help in the capture and delivery of fugitive slaves. The laws were very unpopular in the North. They caused a great deal of resentment in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
Background
Slavery in America began in the English colony of Jamestown in 1619. It started with the purchase of 20 Africans from an English warship named the White Lyon. The Colonists in the Virginia Colony bought the contracts of the Africans as indentured servants. Not long after this it became a custom to hold slaves for life in the colonies. During the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves were used to raise crops of tobacco and food crops. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became the most important crop. At this point slavery became a critical part of the South's economy.
The issue of slavery caused difficulties for the United States almost from its beginning as a country. The framers of the Constitution used ambiguous language regarding the holding of slaves. Neither the word "slave" or "slavery" were used in the Constitution. The problem was in creating a democracy that ensured its citizens freedom while keeping a considerable part of the population in slavery without any freedoms.
In the United States, up to the 1860s, slaves and indentured servants were treated as personal property. They were subject to the property laws of the individual states. At first, most of the laws concerned indentured servants. But the laws began to differentiate between indentured servants and slaves around the middle of the 17th century. They also began to differentiate between races. People of African descent began to be held as slaves for life.
Men and women slaves were generally treated the same under most state laws. However, some states had laws that applied only to women slaves. For example, Virginia passed laws punishing women who had children by their masters. They also confirmed the slave status of any children born of a "Negro or mulatto women". Great Britain had a structured system whereby children claimed their lineage through their father. This also applied to illegitimate children (parents were not married). Virginia was the first colony to change this. Slave children were considered the same race and status as the mother, even if the child was fathered by a white man. Laws concerning rape did not apply to black and Indian women. A slave woman could not defend herself against the attack by a white person. If she did, she was subject to beatings. While it was illegal to have relations with a slave woman, the laws were not usually enforced. This system increased the wealth of slave owners. They did not have to buy slaves if they could breed their own.
Slaves, whether born into slavery or purchased as a slave, had no legal rights. The United States Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) confirmed that slaves were not citizens of the United States nor of any state they reside in. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision.
Early pro-slavery legislation
Northwest Ordinance 1787
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States (before the United States Constitution). It created the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States. The Ordinance provided that the territory would be formed into "not less than three nor more than five States".
The territory was made up of lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. It was south of British North America and the Great Lakes. It was north of the Ohio River. Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the new territory. However, it contained a provision that any fugitive slaves caught in the territory would be returned to their owners. It also did not place any restrictions on slavery within any new states formed from the Northwest Territory. Southerners had no problems with the ban on slavery. They thought that most of the new settlers would come from Southern states. Once a state was formed, the former Southerners would vote to allow slavery. However, none of the states formed from the Northwest Territory ended up allowing slavery.
U.S. Constitution 1789
When the United States Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation in 1789, Article Four of the United States Constitution contained the Fugitive Slave Clause. It states: