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Article: Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act
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- American Eras
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Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act
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Expanded Federal Role.
The Fugitive Slave Act that formed part of the Compromise of 1850 supplemented the mechanisms established by Congress in 1793 for the retrieval of runaways. Under the 1793 law, slaveholders could seize an alleged runaway in free territory and bring the accused before a federal judge or local magistrate to prove title to the slave and obtain a certificate of rendition entitling the master to remove the slave from the free jurisdiction. The law placed most of the burden of slave catching on masters, including the burden of dealing with uncooperative Northerners, and it made rendition hearings inconvenient to arrange ...