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How Did the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Federalize Slave-Catching? - The Rendition of Anthony Burns and the Machinery of Slave-Catching | Sleepy Facts About History
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Most of us carry a simplified picture of the United States before the Civil War: slavery confined to the South, and the North standing as a firm boundary of free soil. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 dismantled that geographic boundary, making the capture and return of alleged escapees a federal obligation enforced by national officers. This episode examines the specific machinery of that statute, from the federal commissioners who were financially incentivized to order remands, to the…
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