The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act Quiz | U.S. History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What was the basis for the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act? Why did we even need it?

Answer: it defined how to enforce Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 stated "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In other words, if an enslaved person ran away to a free state, he/she wasn't free no matter what laws the free state passed or how hard it tried to nullify federal laws. The free state always needed to take the enslaved person back into slavery. Residents of free states didn't like that.

They didn't want slave owners telling them what to do.

2. Was the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act the first federal law requiring slaves to be returned?

Answer: no, the 1850 act replaced the original 1793 Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 act replaced the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which had been in place for 57 years, but was not effective enough to make the slave states happy. The 1850 Act contained several significant changes. If you were enslaved, the new law made it harder for you to escape. If you were free, it was harder for you to help someone escape. That's coming up in more detail next, but watch for hints.

3. Let's say you are morally against slavery, living in a state where slavery is illegal. You're just standing around, when a federal marshal comes up and says, "Watch the back door and don't let the slave escape when I go to the front." After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, can you just stay where you are and not help re-enslave the poor person? This is a law that anti-slavery people really hated.

Answer: no, you are required by law to help

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, Section 5, said that federal marshals and their deputies could "summon and call to their aid the bystanders" to help catch a slave. The law made everyone in a free state a potential slave catcher. Though the odds of being in just the right place to be summoned were exceedingly slim, it was the principle. People who lived in free states and voted against slavery in every way they could, didn't want to be among those who had to help federal slave catchers.

4. If you hid a runaway slave from a federal marshal, how did your punishment change under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, compared to the 1793 act that was in effect before? People remembered Charles Torrey, an underground railroad conductor imprisoned for stealing slaves, who died in jail due to poor medical care in 1846.

Answer: you were newly at risk of going to jail, as well as a higher fine

If you hindered the capture or assisted a runaway, Section 7 of the 1850 act said you "were subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months." That was a significant change. The most you could be punished under the 1793 act was a fine of $500, with no risk of jail.

The threat of jail affected many people who imagined themselves, through odd bad luck, in a situation where they could help a slave escape. It would be against their conscience not to do so, but there was no allowance for conscientious objectors. All had to help, and not hinder, the recovery of people trying to get free.

It wasn't clear what hinder meant. Was a mere whispered caution, "there's a marshal coming," worth six months in jail? No one knew. Strictly speaking, it could mean that.

5. Southern states were concerned that free-state law enforcement officials weren't doing their jobs. What new position was created by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, that had never existed before? Consider that if state officials couldn't be trusted...

Answer: federally-appointed commissioners

Commissions were to be appointed by federal circuit courts to deal exclusively with decisions about escaped slaves. Section 3 of the 1850 act said "Circuit Courts of the United States shall from time to time enlarge the number of the commissioners." The goal was to keep everything running smoothly and quickly. With federal commissioners, a slave catcher could always have an impartial federal representative available to deal with, avoiding biased state officials.

He still had to work with a variety of state officers, out of necessity, and sheriffs, deputies and other people still weren't always helpful.

6. The new officials created by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act were paid each time they judged if a defendant was a slave or free. What were the payments? The amounts were justified because an escaped slave required so much more paperwork for the poor official.

Answer: $10 to decide a person was a slave, $5 to set them free

Northern citizens complained that the inequal fees would bias the officials to decide the people brought before them were escaped slaves, because it would double their income, and the paperwork wasn't that bad. There was already a strong bias toward a person being a runaway -- there was a slave catcher standing right there, saying so, and the defendant was in handcuffs and probably looked afraid, so he/she must be a runaway, right? The extra $5 incentive just added to the performance.

7. Usually, when a defendant faces a judge, he or she is allowed to bring witnesses, can request a jury, and is allowed to testify on his or her own behalf. Did the hearing allowed by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act let the alleged slave have such privileges? An enslaved person wasn't usually allowed to testify against a white person in court, and the 1850 law was created to shift the bias back toward the slave owners.

Answer: no, the defendant could not offer a defense

Section 6 of the 1850 act said, "In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates... shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped." The defendent could not testify, and the unchallenged certificate saying he or she escaped, was enough to let him or her be legally escorted to a southern state.

It might be back to where his or her old master was waiting, or it might be to where someone was waiting to enslave him or her for the first time.

The actual numbers involved were small -- a few hundred, and most seem legitimate escapees -- but so many people worried about themselves, their spouse or their children being trapped and sent south.

8. Northern states who thought the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was unfair passed laws to try to weaken it. They might require a jury trial for an alleged escaped slave, or forbid state officers like sheriffs or state facilities like jails from being used for federal recaptures. What were these northern laws called, that attempted to return some sense of individual freedom?

Answer: personal liberty laws

Personal liberty laws began to be passed in the 1820s by Indiana and Connecticut in response to the 1793 fugitive slave act, attacking the lack of a trial by jury. New York and Vermont joined in 1840, also providing the defendant an attorney. After 1850, the laws escalated, passed by Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, Ohio, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Vermont.

They were challenged in the Supreme Court and in state courts, and sometimes ignored as too extreme or dangerous, but the opposition to the 1850 act was clearly there.

9. Many court cases and illegal mob rescues grew out of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, and runaway slaves realized they were no longer safe in the U.S. One typical example was Shadrach Minkins, who fled from slavery in Virginia to what two other places, starting in 1851?

Answer: Massachusetts, then when slave catchers arrived, Canada

Born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia, Minkins escaped to Massachusetts in 1850, but while he was working at Taft's Cornhill Coffee House, two US marshalls, acting first like customers, arrested him Feb. 15, 1851. In Boston, abolitionist lawyers were easy to find, and they applied for a writ of habeas corpus, but the local judge refused. Angry mobs were easy to find also, and the Boston Vigilance Committee came into the courtroom and physically abducted Minkins, hiding him in a Beacon Hill attic nearby, then spiriting him off to Canada. Fingers pointed all around. President Millard Fillmore was ordered to do something; he ordered Boston citizens to do something; prosecutors were cautious in the face of mobs when prosecuting the rescuers. The whole situation showed that the 1850 act caused more problems than it solved, and U.S. free states were no longer a haven, but the underground railroad would still try to work. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who was from Massachusetts, failed to represent southern interests well and lost face among the potential southern voters he had hoped would help when he ran for president in 1852.

10. So what finally happened? Was the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act ever repealed, or did it just disappear with the Constitutional amendment ending slavery? Congress usually creates more paperwork and ties up loose ends when it can.

Answer: Congress repealed both the 1793 and 1850 acts in 1864

The Civil War and the Emancipatiion Proclamation of 1863 made the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law mostly moot. Only slaves who had escaped from loyal masters, primarily in Kentucky, were still subject to the law. Northern and military sentiment was turning even more strongly against slavery, so getting people to cooperate was difficult.

The end of slavery everywhere was looking inevitable, but to wrap things up, Congress officially addressed the problem. On June 13, 1864, the House voted to repeal, 86 to 60.

The Senate rejected a bill to repeal only the 1850 act, but passed a bill to repeal both acts on June 22, voting 27 to 12. The repeal was complete June 28.

Source: Author littlepup

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act Trivia Quiz

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was supposed to be part of a compromise that brought the country together. Well, no. It helped tear the country further apart, and almost started a war by itself. What was so bad about it?

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>