The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory.
Read more about Fugitive Slave Laws: Pre-colonial and Colonial Eras, 1785 Attempt, Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, Civil War-era Legal Status of Fugitive Slaves
Famous quotes containing the words fugitive slave, fugitive, slave and/or laws:
“It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perfect Scepticisme ... is a disease incurable, and a thing rather to be pitied or laughed at, then seriously opposed. For when a man is so fugitive and unsettled that he will not stand to the verdict of his own Faculties, one can no more fasten any thing upon him, than he can write in the water, or tye knots in the wind.”
—Henry More (1614–1687)
“Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms ... you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)