The Underground Railroad in Connecticut

6. "This Pretended Law We Cannot Obey"

C H A P T E R 6 "THIS PRETENDED LAW WE CANNOT OBEY" THE SPLIT between North and South became wider and more serious as the number of runaway slaves became ever greater. It has been estimated that in the decade of the 1840's over a thousand fugitives annually escaped from what abolitionists liked to call "the land of whips and chains."x These runaways represented, among other things, a serious financial loss to slaveholders; a good slave in a good market might be worth $1000 or even $1500, though the average was considerably less. It was not surprising that Southern representatives in Congress constantly moved for a strengthening of the existing fugitive slave laws. A contributing factor was the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania in 1842; for that ruling, while maintaining that the power to legislate on fugitives lay solely with Congress, also held that the states and their officials were not obliged to enforce the federal statutes. This decision touched off a new wave of "personal liberty laws" in Northern states, which in turn led to increased Southern pressure for a new Congressional enactment.2 Meanwhile, dark clouds were hovering over the Rio 94 The Underground Railroad in Connecticut Grande. American settlers in Texas, many of them slaveholders , had declared their independence of Mexico and had won it in battle in 1836. They now sought annexation by the United States, a prospect that disturbed many Northerners as much as it delighted many Southerners. Since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the balance between slave and free states had been maintained by admitting two new states at a time, one in each category. If Texas came in by itself, the slave power would predominate ; and the fact that Mexico would regard annexation as "equivalent to a declaration of war" would obligate the North to accept the resulting imbalance.3 The Southerners had their way. Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845, war with Mexico followed, and the United States by its victory gained vast newlands stretching all the way from the high prairies to the Pacific—New Mexico, California, and what is today Arizona.4 Would these territories be admitted as slave states or as free ones ? Controversy over this question exacerbated the growing sectional conflict and became a major national issue. At length those two masters of quid pro quo politics, Henry Clay of Kentucky and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, worked out what many thought was a solution. This settlement , known as the Compromise of 1850, was adopted by Congress on September 18 of that year, despite great debate and disagreement. It embodied these chief provisions :5 1. The size of Texas would be somewhat reduced by alloting some of its territory to New Mexico, for which Texas was to be recompensed by the United States government; 2. California would be admitted to the Union as a free state; 3. New Mexico and Utah would be admitted, when ready, "THIS PRETENDED LAW WE CANNOT OBEY" 95 as either slave or free, according to the determination of their settlers; 4. The slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia; 5. A new and strict fugitive slave law would be enacted. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, adopted as a result of the compromise,was a drastic act indeed. It deprived the accused fugitive of any right to a trial by jury. Worse still, it provided that he could not even testify in his own behalf. Laying the jurisdiction of fugitive cases in the hands of federal commissioners appointed for this purpose, it directed United States marshals to apprehend alleged runaways, under pain of a fine of $1000 for failure to do so or for permitting a fugitive to escape. It permitted anyone at all to have an alleged runaway seized, without a warrant, and to bring him before a commissioner. That official had summary power to decide the case, and he was recompensed by a fee—ten dollars if the prisoner was adjudged to be an escaped slave, only five dollars if he was declared free, so that a finding of slavery was to the commissioner 's advantage. On one hand the law provided no penalty for false claiming a freeman as a fugitive from slavery, and on the other, it set a fine of $1000 and a prison sentence of up to six months on...