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Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

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Sketch of a gathering of African Americans gathering in a meetinghouse.

“Nativity Gives Citizenship”: Teaching Antislavery Constitutionalism Through Black Conventions

The demand of antislavery activists for accused fugitives to be guaranteed a jury trial was an implicit recognition of Black citizenship.
by Erik J. Chaput via Commonplace on March 7, 2023

America’s Struggle for Moral Coherence

The problem of how to reconcile irreconcilable values is what led to the Civil War. It hasn’t gone away.
by Andrew Delbanco via The Atlantic on November 12, 2018

On Richard Blackett’s "The Captive Quest for Freedom"

Five historians weigh in on a new book about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
by Martha S. Jones, Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, Elizabeth R. Varon, H. Robert Baker, Hannah-Rose Murray, Simon Newman via Historians Against Slavery on August 2, 2018
Millard Filmore.
partner

Remembering the Sins of Millard Fillmore

A little-remembered president's most notorious act.
by Carole Emberton via Made By History on January 5, 2018

What the Fugitive Slave Act Teaches Us About How States Can Resist Oppressive Federal Power

The actions of attorneys general in California and other states have their antecedents in the fight against that draconian law.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on February 8, 2017
In this drawing from ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ a Black child is taken from his mother by a white man.

The Black Fugitive Who Inspired ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and the End of US Slavery

Born enslaved, John Andrew Jackson spent his life fighting for freedom as a fugitive, abolitionist, lecturer and writer.
by Susanna Ashton via The Conversation on July 17, 2024
Frozen truck on icy road

The Frozen Trucker and the Fugitive Slave

On the TransAm Trucking case, legal reasoning, and the Fugitive Slave Act.
by Barry Goldman via 3 Quarks Daily on May 27, 2024

The Men Who Started the War

John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
by Drew Gilpin Faust via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Four white men kidnapping Black man

Kidnappers of Color Versus the Cause of Antislavery

Thousands of free-born Black people in the North were kidnapped into slavery through networks that operated as a form of “Reverse Underground Railroad.”
by Richard Bell, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on December 8, 2022
The “Arrival of freedmen and their families at Baltimore, Maryland” circa 1865.

“The Times Requires This Testimony”: William Still’s 'The Underground Railroad'

Still’s detailed record of radical abolitionist action remains a model for creating freedom out of community and community out of freedom.
by Julia W. Bernier via Black Perspectives on December 5, 2022
Print shows Rebel troops killing the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, and setting fire to the buildings.

Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s.

In the mid-19th century, a pro-slavery minority used violence to stifle a growing anti-slavery majority, spurring their opposition to respond in kind.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on October 29, 2022
Abolitionist broadside from 1854 calling out the fugitive slave bill commissioner

An Angry Mob Broke Into A Jail Looking For A Black Man—Then Freed Him

How Oct. 1 came to be celebrated as “Jerry Rescue Day” in abolitionist Syracuse.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on October 1, 2022
Black and white lithograph drawing of a white man dragging away a Black woman as another white man holds her baby.

Maternal Grief in Black and White

Examining enslaved mothers and antislavery literature on the eve of war.
by Cassandra Berman via Nursing Clio on September 22, 2022
Billboard saying "Welcome to California Where Abortion is Safe and Still Legal"
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What Pre-Civil War History Tells Us About the Coming Abortion Battle

Fights over fugitive slave laws pitted states against each other and showcased the risks of the federal government not supporting liberty.
by Kate Masur via Made By History on July 14, 2022
Three children playing on a frozen river.

The Ohio River

When the river freezes, lives change.
by Tiya Miles via Perspectives on History on January 27, 2022
Book covers of America on Fire and In Defense of Looting

The Ballot or the Brick: On Elizabeth Hinton’s ‘America on Fire’ and Vicky Osterweil’s ‘In Defense of Looting’

Two books trace anti-police uprisings to the urban riots of the Civil Rights era. But as people took to the streets in 2020, why did so few pick up a brick?
by David Helps via MR Online on August 10, 2021

Ralph Waldo Emerson Would Really Hate Your Twitter Feed

For Ralph Waldo Emerson, political activism was full of empty gestures done in bad faith. Abolition called for true heroism.
by Peter Wirzbicki via Psyche on August 9, 2021
Picture of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

On Abraham Lincoln’s Convoluted Plan For the Abolition of Slavery

Although he did not openly endorse every one of the many precepts of the antislavery Constitution, Lincoln framed his positions entirely within its parameters.
by James Oakes via Literary Hub on January 13, 2021

How a Humble Stone Carries the Memory of an African American Uprising Against the Fugitive Slave Law

Stories about the past can help communities create an identity of which they can be proud. This was certainly the case at Christiana.
by James Delle via Zócalo Public Square on January 16, 2020

‘A Doubtful Freedom’

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.
by David W. Blight via New York Review of Books on January 14, 2020

An Early Case For Reparations

Two new books tell the stories of people kidnapped and sold into slavery. One of them sued successfully.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on October 16, 2019

The New Fugitive Slave Laws

In criminalizing the provision of humanitarian assistance to migrants, we have resurrected the unjust laws of antebellum America.
by Manisha Sinha via New York Review of Books on July 17, 2019

The Question Without a Solution

The horrors of the fugitive slave laws, the costs of union, and the value of comity.
by Alan Jacobs via Weekly Standard on November 24, 2018

Trumpism, Realized

To preserve the political and cultural preeminence of white Americans against a tide of demographic change, the administration has settled on a policy of systemic child abuse.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on June 20, 2018
Jeff Sessions.

The Fight to Define Romans 13

Jeff Sessions used it to justify his policy of family separation, but he’s not the first to invoke the biblical passage.
by Lincoln Mullen via The Atlantic on June 15, 2018

Today’s Eerie Echoes of the Civil War

We may not be in the midst of a war today, but the progress of democracy in this country is still tied to the rights of its most vulnerable citizens.
by Manisha Sinha via New York Review of Books on March 6, 2018
Anthony Burns
partner

Sanctuary-City Advocates Are Like Abolitionists – Not Secessionists

A history lesson for attorney general Jeff Sessions.
by Judith Giesberg via Made By History on March 6, 2018
Amos Lawrence.

The Bostonian Who Armed the Anti-Slavery Settlers in "Bleeding Kansas"

How Amos Adams Lawrence became an abolitionist.
by Robert K. Sutton via Zócalo Public Square on August 8, 2017

A Brief History of Sanctuary Cities

Today's debate over sanctuary cities embodies a much longer debate in America over federalism.
by H. Robert Baker via Tropics of Meta on February 2, 2017

The Truth About Abolition

The movement finally gets the big, bold history it deserves.
by Adam Rothman via The Atlantic on April 1, 2016
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