Fugitive Slave Act Research Paper

The newly passed Fugitive Slave Act made it a crime to help runaway slaves and allowed offi cials to arrest those slaves in free areas. Slaveholders were permitted to take suspected fugitives to U.S. commissioners, who decided their fate. The Fugitive Slave Act upset northerners, who were uncomfortable with the commissioners’ power. Northerners disliked the idea of a trial without a jury. They also disapproved of commissioners’ higher fees for returning slaves. Most were horrifi ed that some free African Americans had been captured and sent to the South. Most northerners opposed to the Act peacefully resisted, but violence did erupt. In 1854 Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, was arrested in Boston. Abolitionists used force while