1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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The Fugitive Slave Act, or Fugitive Slave Law, was passed by Congress on Sept. 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850. It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate. By 1843, several hundred slaves a year were successfully escaping to the North, making slavery an unstable institution in the border states. Many Northern states wanted to disregard the earlier Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. In response to the weakening of the original statute, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 penalized officials who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave, and made them liable to a fine. Law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. Slave owners needed only to supply an affidavit to a federal marshal to capture an escaped slave. The law resulted in the kidnapping and conscription of free blacks into slavery, as suspected fugitive slaves had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations. Several Northern businessmen supported the law, due to their business ties with the Southern states, and in the early stages of the Civil War, runaway slaves captured by Union forces were often returned to their masters. But some generals refused, considering them contraband of war and figuring that the loss of workers would also damage the Confederacy. Although the Union policy of confiscation and military emancipation had effectively superseded the operation of the Fugitive Slave Act by 1863, the Fugitive Slave Act was formally repealed in June 1864.
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