As far back as the earliest law sources, from Hammurabi’s Code to Draco the Lawgiver, many pieces of legislation or created rules have been extremely harsh and abhorrent. That said, few can compare to the sheer stupidity and outrageousness of the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850s. A law so deeply unjustifiable and unfair to slaves that it helped accelerate the course of the American Civil War, it stands as one of history’s most reprehensible pieces of legislation, in which the lives of countless minorities were ruined.
So, in this new series, The WORST of History, only the absolute worst of days (thankfully) long gone will be covered.
Background
The history of slavery in the USA is a long and complex one, stretching back as far as the 16th century.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was intended as a compromise between the Confederacy of the South and the Union of the North, with the former heavily invested in slave ownership. It built on the earlier 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slaveowners to recapture escapees who had fled to free states — a law the North despised and the South believed the North was deliberately undermining.
The 1850 Act was drafted by Virginia senator James Murray Mason, a slaveholder and white supremacist who referred to Black people — then commonly called “negroes” — as “the great curse of the country.” Mason was among those who viewed slavery as a “positive good,” though he was not as widely celebrated for this view as figures like Robert E. Lee or John C. Calhoun. Even after the Act was abolished, Mason reportedly turned to importing white slaves from Canada.
The Act Itself
The new Fugitive Slave Act penalised any official who refused to arrest a fugitive, with punishments including a six-month prison sentence and a $1,000 fine (over $31,000 in 2021 terms). Ordinary citizens were also threatened with severe punishments not only for aiding and abetting runaway slaves but also for doing nothing — failing to report or act after seeing an escaped slave.
Worse still, if captured, an alleged fugitive could be prosecuted based solely on the word of their supposed master. A special commissioner, rather than a jury, would decide the case, and the accused slave had no right to testify in their own defence. The commissioner would receive $5 if the suspect was freed, but $10 if they were returned to slavery — a blatant financial incentive to rule in favour of slaveowners.
This meant that anyone, even a free Black person, could be falsely accused of being a runaway and, without any meaningful legal defence, be forced into a life of misery on a plantation. Promotions and other rewards awaited those who captured suspected fugitives, further corrupting the process.
A chilling poster of the time offered rewards for turning in runaway slaves, encapsulating the law’s brutality.
Northern Resistance
Unsurprisingly, the North reacted with fury to the Fugitive Slave Act. Of the cases brought under the law, 332 individuals were returned to Southern owners, while only 11 were acquitted. Northern citizens — including pastors, politicians, and writers — actively resisted and sabotaged the law’s enforcement. Notable figures like reformer Frederick Douglass, author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and politician Joshua Reed Giddings publicly denounced it.
Those punished under the law often faced imprisonment, torture, or even execution in the South, typically under state laws rather than federal laws. Historian Eric Foner described the Act’s enforcement as “the most powerful exercise of federal authority within the United States.”
Yet in 1859, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law, with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declaring: “The act of Congress commonly called the fugitive slave law is, in all of its provisions, fully authorized by the Constitution of the United States.”
Voices of the Time
Abolitionist William Still later recalled: “The day the Fugitive Bill passed, even the bravest abolitionist began to fear that a fugitive slave was no longer safe anywhere under the stars and stripes, north or south.” Playwright Robert Schenkkan summed up public reaction: “It was violently detested. There were riots.”
Towards Civil War
The Fugitive Slave Act heightened tensions between North and South, which boiled over into open conflict in 1861. The only possible positive outcome of the law was that it hastened the Civil War — a conflict the Union ultimately won, resulting in the abolition of slavery. The Act was repealed in 1864, shortly before the war’s end. The Union dubbed it the “Bloodhound Bill,” and upon its repeal, celebrated its eradication.
Epilogue
The Fugitive Slave Act is widely regarded as one of the most appalling laws in American history. There was no liberty, no justice, and no fairness in its provisions — only a racially corrupt system designed to tip the scales in favour of wealthy claimants, regardless of evidence. The absence of a jury, the denial of defence, and the perverse financial incentives made the law a grotesque violation of the democratic ideals enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
The New York Tribune put it best upon the law’s abolition: “The blood-red stain that has blotted the statute-book of the Republic is wiped out forever.”
