The Fugitive Slave Act essays

The Fugitive Slave Act essays As the evolution of this report on Fugitive Slave Act goes into progression you will learn about what this act changed in the world we live in today. This report will help you understand what differences this Act bought forth to the nation in a whole. I will cover plenty of aspects to make up what the Fugitive Slave Act stood for. On January 29, 1850, the 70-year-old Clay presented a compromise. For eight months members of Congress, led by Clay, Daniel Webster, Senator from Massachusetts, and John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina, debated the compromise. With the help of Stephen Douglas, a young Democrat from Illinois, a series of bills that would make up the compromise were ushered through Congress. The Fugitive Slave Act was created in 1850 as a part of groups of laws. Those laws were in reference to the Compromise of 1850. It was created in the compromise that antislavery advocated to the gain of California to be as a free state. The group of laws that were created mandated the return of runaway slaves, regardless of where in the Union they might be situated at the time of their discovery or capture.(Foner)Along with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the ratification of Kansas' admission for free statehood; this legislation is part of the chain of events which culminated in the American Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that slavery question would be decided by popular sovereignty. In addition, Fugitive Slave Act prohibited slave-trading in the District of Columbia and also required that the citizens be assistants in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It also denied a fugitive's right to a jury trial. Ironically, the passage of this law grew great resentment by the abolitionists. The abolitionists detested the law because majority of the Americans embraced the law. The reason this act was created to free slaves and make abolitionists resolve their differences and put an end to slavery. Even though it was ...