hi my name is clint smith and this is
crash course black american history
at this point we've made clear that
slavery was full of so many devastating
and horrifying realities that no human
being should have ever had to experience
the physical violence and torture the
people were subjected to
the way so many families were separated
and split apart
the way that your status as property was
passed down from parent to child
and from parent to child across
generations
among these horrifying realities is the
way that someone could live in relative
freedom for years
and then seemingly out of nowhere be
kidnapped by a slave catcher
and brought back into bondage or brought
into a bondage
that they had never even known it sounds
like a nightmare
but it was real and it's something that
often left black folks
living in free states with a profound
sense of fear and anxiety
even when they were just walking down
the street it left many feeling like
their freedom
wasn't really that free at all today
we're going to learn about the fugitive
slave act of 1793
let's start the show
[Music]
not long after the revolutionary war and
the adoption of the constitution
a national debate arose on how to
control fugitive slaves
in the united states there were multiple
laws and policies created
to prevent uprisings and rebellions and
to generally control the movement of
enslaved people
but the fugitive slave act of 1793 is
perhaps the most expansive
far-reaching manifestation of this
effort it was signed into law
in february 1793 by president george
washington
and the act did three main things one
empowered enslavers to capture enslave
people who ran away from their
plantations
this meant that any enslaver could bring
an escaped enslaved person before any
federal or state magistrate
and reclaim the property the law said
was theirs
two it stated that there was no need to
have a trial by jury
to return an enslaved person to bondage
it only required oral testimony
from the person making the claim and
three it stated that anyone who
interfered with the recapturing of a
fugitive slave
could be fined imprisoned or sued by the
enslaver
part of why this matters from a legal
standpoint is that the u.s was still
a really young country and was still
trying to figure out how this
constitution they had created
would end up working in practice and as
you can imagine
given that they were british until just
a few decades before
many of their legal principles were
still heavily influenced
by their mother country an example of
this is the concept of property rights
and even the very notion of what
constitutes his property
the case that prompted the newly formed
united states to more directly address
how they were going to deal with
fugitive enslaved persons
was somerset versus stewart this case
happened a few years prior to the united
states being officially founded
and it was actually an english case but
its outcome would determine
how a nation on the verge of becoming
its own would navigate the thorny
question
of fugitive slaves in 1769
james somerset an enslaved person from
what would become the united states
was brought to england by his enslaver
charles stewart
a man who had been a customs official
while he was in boston
but who was now moving back to britain
in 1771
while still in england somerset ran away
from stuart
only to be recaptured about two months
later
stewart then had somerset imprisoned on
a ship bound for jamaica
to be sold into bondage on one of the
plantations there
so in this case somerset was enslaved
under virginia law
but there was no comparable law
justifying his enslavement
in england the absence of such a law led
many british abolitionists
to claim that slavery was thus unlawful
in their country
a group of these abolitionists filed a
writ of habeas corpus
a document used to determine if the
detainment of an individual
is legal which ultimately led to the
dispute the british justice presiding
over the case
lord mansfield agreed with the
abolitionists to an extent
proclaiming that no enslaved person
quote could be forcibly removed from
britain
and sold into slavery the ruling though
didn't immediately free enslave people
in england and it certainly didn't free
enslave people
in the british colonies this ruling
presented a very real problem for
southerners
and remember what was still then
england's american colonies
whatever the status of enslaved people
following the decision
there was great concern about where the
political winds were blowing
this fear and sense of anxiety became
the backdrop of many debates on slavery
during the founding of the united states
and it also led southerners to push for
constitutional protections
that would preserve slavery and ensure
that
if they escaped enslaved people will be
brought back
to their enslavers thus the fugitive
slave clause
was born not to be confused with the
fugitive slave act
the fugitive slave clause said that no
person held to service or labor in one
state
under the laws thereof escaping into
another
shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein
be discharged from such service or labor
but shall be delivered up on claim
of the party to whom such service or
labor may be due
let's go to the thought bubble though
the northerners allowed the fugitive
slave clause
to be included in the constitution they
did what a lot of lawmakers and law
enforcement do
when they don't like something they just
didn't enforce the law
from a moral standpoint many northerners
viewed the fugitive slave clause
as kidnapping and essentially decided
that they would just ignore this portion
of the constitution
when the south said uh hey guys
you're not really enforcing the law the
north was basically like
what what's that it's so loud in here i
can't hear you over all of the moral
inconsistency in the room
anti-slavery sentiments were rising in
the north
and some northern states even started
passing state laws
banning the kidnapping of free people of
color and criminalized
wrongful enslavement all of this
prompted southerners
to move away from the constitution as
their main enforcement mechanism
and instead use congress to force the
northern states into compliance
so they went to congress and started
lobbying for a new law
that would more consistently enforce the
terms of the fugitive slave clause
and what they got was basically a law
that provided more details about how the
spirit of the fugitive slave clause
could be put into practice for example
the fugitive slave act
gave enslavers and slave catchers the
right to go into free states
and search for those who had escaped and
imposed a 500
fine on anyone who assisted escaped
slaves
or withheld information that would be
helpful in their apprehension
and 500 is a lot of money now but back
in the 18th century
it was a whole lot of money thanks
thought bubble
so the legislators in congress justified
this by arguing
that it was important for the union to
protect everyone's property rights
and that not enforcing the fugitive
slave clause was standing in the way of
those rights
individuals like northern abolitionists
on the other hand opposed the law
arguing that the act was
unconstitutional because it curbed
states rights to make their own
decisions
on the issue of slavery at the end of
the day though the southerners argument
won out
and the fugitive slave act passed with a
large majority in the house
and no real opposition in the senate
abolitionists in the north
were furious about this and felt like it
would turn many of the cities that
served as a refuge for black people
into places where glorified federally
sanctioned bounty hunters
roamed around kidnapping black folks at
will regardless
of whether or not they had actually been
escaped slaves
a white person could effectively just
lie and tell the court
that someone was an escapee who belonged
to them and claimed them as their own
no jury no due process no nothing
just a white person's word against the
black persons
and in 18th century america you can
probably guess whose word
carried more weight as a result of all
this many continue to ignore the laws in
the fugitive slave act
just as they did with the fugitive slave
clause but many other people
readily took advantage of powers
bestowed on them by this new law
even our first president george
washington who signed the fugitive slave
act into law
used that very act in an attempt to
recapture own a judge
an enslaved woman who was living and
working at the president's house in
philadelphia
when she learned in 1796 she was going
to be given to one of martha
washington's granddaughters
she ran away george washington was
supposedly furious
writing to his secretary of the treasury
oliver walcott jr
the ingratitude of the girl who was
brought up and treated more like a child
than a servant
she ought not to escape with impunity if
it can be avoided
judge was later tracked down in new
hampshire customs collector joseph
whipple
talked to her and wrote to washington
that judge would willingly return
if she could be freed after george and
martha passed away but this wasn't good
enough for washington
who demanded that she be returned
immediately
at the same time however he knew that
many of the northern states
would not react happily to him the
president of the united states
tracking down an escaped slave he wanted
her returned
but also didn't want it to become some
sort of public spectacle
so he wrote to whipple i do not mean
however by this request
that such violent measures should be
used as would excite
a mob or riot a few years later martha's
nephew
burwell bassett jr was in new hampshire
and tried to take judge by force but new
hampshire senator john langdon
heard the plan and sent a messenger to
judge allowing her to escape
the fugitive slave act made clear to
even more people
that slavery was an inhumane enterprise
the spectacle
of people being pulled from the streets
from their communities
from their homes and brought back down
south was horrifying
and for some in the north forced them to
see and confront the insidiousness of
the institution
for the very first time there was no
averting their eyes from this
and looking back we shouldn't avert our
eyes either
as has been the case with so much of the
violence that black people have
experienced
we have to look at it directly and sit
with it
in order to understand it i'll see you
next time
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