We are thrilled to feature a guest post by Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist^®. Judy is a genealogist with a law degree, combining her expertise to navigate the complex intersection of law and family history. As an internationally recognized lecturer and award-winning writer, Judy holds certifications as a Certified Genealogist^® and Certified Genealogical Lecturer^℠ from the Board for Certification of Genealogists^®. You can explore more of her insights on her blog at The Legal Genealogist.

The stories of so many American families are told in the laws of the day and in the court actions resulting from those laws. Genealogists who add legal records to their research often find they can add depth and breadth to their family’s history. Nowhere can this be seen more profoundly and dramatically than in the intersection of genealogy and the law in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the fallout from that law.

The Compromise of 1850

It was seen by many as a last-ditch attempt to save the Union. Strained by growing disagreements over the “peculiar institution” of slavery and struggling to determine whether slavery would be allowed in the territory acquired at the end of the Mexican War, Congress was also faced with the application of California for admission as a so-called free state. That application threatened the balance in the Senate between those representing slave states and those representing free states which had existed since the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

A contentious debate stretching over months ended when Congress ratified a package of bills sponsored by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois that became known as the Compromise of 1850.^[1]George S. Merriam. Negro and the Nation: A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement (1906). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database California was admitted as the 31st state, new territories were created in Utah and New Mexico, and a new law began to govern the fate of those who had fled enslavement.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

That Act—the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850^[2]To amend, and supplementary to, the act entitled “An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three., Chapter 60, 31 … Continue reading—required that fugitives from enslavement be returned to those claiming ownership regardless of state laws and required law enforcement officials at all levels to assist in the process. It imposed strong penalties on those obstructing the capture and return of fugitives.

Arrests required nothing more than a sworn statement claiming ownership, and the law created a draconian hearing system under which the presiding Commissioner was paid twice as much if he found a person to be a fugitive than if he found the proof was insufficient. Those accused of being fugitives had no right to a jury trial and could not testify in their own defense.^[3]To amend, and supplementary to, the act entitled “An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three., Chapter 60, 31 … Continue reading

Reactions and Resistance

The law was largely regarded as offensive in the North, where bounty hunters not only aggressively pursued those who had escaped enslavement but sometimes swept up free people of color and claimed them as escaped slaves.

Resistance in the North took the form of laws and court decisions to gut the Act and of individual resistance—often violent—to enforcement.

The Laws of Resistance

At least seven northern states enacted Personal Liberty Laws, providing some measure of legal protection to those alleged to be fugitives from enslavement:

Connecticut

• An Act for the Defense of Liberty in this State^[4]1854 Connecticut – Public Acts, May Session. 80. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1854)

Massachusetts

• An Act to protect the Rights and Liberties of the People of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts^[5]1855  Massachusetts – Acts & Resolves, January Session. 924. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1855)

Michigan

• An Act to protect the rights and liberties of the inhabitants of this State^[6]1855 Massachusetts – Acts & Resolves, January Session. 924. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1855)

Maine

• An act further to protect personal liberty ^[7]1855. Maine – 34th Legislature, Public & Private, Special Acts and Resolves, Regular Session: 207-208. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1855)

New Hampshire

• An Act to secure freedom and the rights of citizenship to persons in this State ^[8]1857 New Hampshire – June Session: 1876-1877. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1857)

Ohio

• An Act To prohibit the confinement of fugitives from slavery in the jails of Ohio ^[9]Ohio – 52nd General Assembly, 2nd Session. 170. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1857)

Wisconsin

• An Act relating to the writ of Habeas Corpus in persons claimed as Fugitive Slaves, the right of trial by jury, and to prevent kidnapping in this State ^[10]1857. Wisconsin – 10th Session, General Acts: 12-14. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1857)

Vermont

• An Act to Secure Freedom to All Persons within this State ^[11]1858. Vermont – Annual Session: 42-44. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Session Laws Library. (1858)

Judicial Resistance

Numerous courts resisted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, allowing juries to acquit those charged with obstructing the acts of slavecatchers solely based on opposition to the law.

Some courts proceeded cautiously, applying strict rules of construction to uphold the law but avoid its consequences. A Boston court in 1851 found abolitionist attorney Charles G. Davis not guilty^[12]Paul Finkelman, Editor. Fugitive Slaves and American Courts: The Pamphlet Literature (2007). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database of aiding an alleged fugitive named Shadrach to escape from a Fugitive Slave Act hearing courtroom, finding the evidence insufficient to show that Davis had personally planned or assisted the mob in rescuing the fugitive. In 1860, Chief Judge John Pettit of the Third District, Kansas Territorial Court, threw out an indictment against a man accused of aiding a fugitive to escape re-enslavement,^[13]James Durham, U.S. v. Lewis L. Weld: Judicial Creativity or Judicial Subversion, 56 J. KAN. B. ASS’n 8 (May-June 1987). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Bar Journals Library interpreting the law in the narrowest literal terms.

Other courts engaged the provisions of the law head-on. Most notably, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court held the act unconstitutional after abolitionist Sherman Booth helped rescue an alleged fugitive slave, Joshua Glover, and sent him away to freedom in Canada. In the case In re Booth,^[14]3 Abram D. Smith & Luther S. Dixon, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin, with Tables of the Cases and Principal Matters 13 (1854). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s State … Continue reading the Court found that the Act violated the constitutional guarantee against deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court found state laws and rulings that contradicted the federal Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional. Its decision in Ableman v. Booth,^[15]Stephen V. R. Ableman, Plaintiff in Error, v. Sherman M. Booth; and The United States, Plaintiff in Error, v. Sherman M. Booth, 62 U.S. 506, 525 (1859). This case can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Supreme Court Library which specifically addressed the Wisconsin Supreme Court holding, held that, under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal law overrode state law to the contrary. It upheld the Act and overturned the Wisconsin decision. Wisconsin continued to defy the federal view, however; its high Court refused to file the mandate of the Supreme Court.^[16]11 Abram D. Smith, et al., Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin, with Tables of the Cases and Principal Matters 1 (1860). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s State Reports: A Historical … Continue reading

The Supreme Court ruling led the legislatures of at least two states to ask the high courts in those states whether their Personal Liberty Laws could be enforced. The Maine Supreme Court reluctantly accepted the constitutionality of the Act^[17]46 Me. 561, OPINIONS OF THE JUSTICES OF THE S. J. COURT, ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS OF THE STATE OF MAINE. (1861). This document can be found through HeinOnline’s Fastcase Premium database and limited the scope of the state’s Personal Liberty Law. By contrast, the New Hampshire Supreme Court found no essential conflict^[18]41 N.H. 550, OPINION OF JUSTICES. (1861). This document can be found through HeinOnline’s Fastcase Premium database between its Personal Liberty Law and the federal Act.

Public Resistance

Acts of public resistance to efforts to return people to enslavement were commonplace. Just as a few examples:

• In Boston, a fugitive from enslavement named Shadrack Minkins was arrested by United States marshals in February of 1851. At a hearing to determine the validity of his arrest, Boston activists entered the courtroom and forcibly took Minkins from custody.^[19]20 Ann. Rep. Presented Mass. Anti-Slavery Soc’y by Bd. Managers 3 (1852). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database He ultimately reached Canada by way of the Underground Railroad. Nine abolitionists were indicted for impeding the federal action. Robert Morris and Lewis Hayden were tried for participating in the resistance but were acquitted. Charges against the remaining defendants were dismissed.
• In October 1851, a group of citizens forcibly removed a man named William Henry, later known as Jerry, from police custody^[20]Earl E. Sperry; Franklin H. Chase, Editor. Jerry Rescue, October 1, 1851 (1924). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database after he was seized in Syracuse, New York, under the Act. Several citizens were charged with impeding enforcement of the Act, and local officials responded by indicting the federal marshal for attempting to kidnap Jerry. Of the citizens charged, several fled to Canada. The first defendant, Enoch Reed, was not tried until 1853 and was acquitted of all major charges and convicted only for resisting a federal officer. One more was acquitted, two trials ended in hung juries, and all other cases were postponed indefinitely until charges were finally dropped in 1861.

• In September 1851, a slaveholder armed with a warrant under the Act sought to secure the return of four men to enslavement after locating them in Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Armed resistance saved the alleged fugitives who ultimately fled to Canada.^[21]W. U. Hensel. Christiana Riot and the Treason Trials of 1851; An Historical Sketch (2). This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database Federal charges were brought against 41 people, with a white miller, Castner Hanway, the first to go to trial in November 1851. He was acquitted by the jury after only 15 minutes of deliberation. Charges against others supposed to have participated in the escape were dropped.
• In Ohio, some 600 residents of Oberlin and Wellington aided in the rescue of John Price in September 1858,^[22]Jacob R. Shipherd, Compiler. History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s Slavery in America and the World database who eventually made it safely to Canada. In December 1858, 37 men were indicted in federal court for violating the Fugitive Slave Act. The first two tried, Simeon Bushnell and Charles Langston, were found guilty in March of 1859. Bushnell was sentenced to 60 days in jail and Langston to 20 days. Public outrage resulted in the charges being dropped against the others.

Genealogy and the Law

In all of these cases, in the laws and in the application of the laws, information of enormous significance for genealogy and family history can be found. In specific cases, names of individuals and their family members and details of how their lives were intertwined with slavery and with the Fugitive Slave Act can be found. In general, the legal records tell the story of a time in which ancestors lived and watched history being written. In all cases, the intersection of genealogy and the law adds richness and depth to family history.

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