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Article: "The Jordan is a hard road to travel": Hoosier responses to fugitive slave cases, 1850-1860.
- Article from:
- International Social Science Review
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Pi Gamma Mu. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On September 18, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed what one historian labeled "the most hateful statute since the Alien and Sedition Acts," the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. (1) Part of the Compromise of 1850, this law placed federal commissioners in each county in the nation and gave them broad powers--to issue arrest warrants, form posses, and even determine the status of alleged fugitives. It denied legal rights to accused runaways and offered financial incentives to commissioners to return slaves to their masters. Since the law provided no statute of limitations, self-proclaimed slaveholders and their hired agents could enter a community, arrest any ...