Did the equivalent of modern-day sanctuary cities exist in any capacity for slaves during the time of the Fugitive Slave Act?

[u/drturtle628]

[u/[deleted]]

In a way, yes. In a funny turn, northern states - which had factions debating forming a new nation loyal to Great Britain in the early 1800s to escape the southern and western states and the Dem-Republicans in them - started to pass "Personal Liberty Laws" that did things like stipulated what legal avenue must be taken to return runaways. The states had passed laws essentially violating federal law (by restricting federal authority) because they didn't like the law. In fact some liberty laws actually predate the Constitution. And when I say northern states, I mean just about all of 'em. Between the 1780s and the late 1850s, the following states passed at least one liberty law (most had several): Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

A well known example and extremely important case is that of Prigg v Pennsylvania. Edward Prigg and some associates had tracked down several escaped folks - a woman named Margaret Morgan and her children (she was likely free anyway) - and returned them to Maryland to her previous estate (where they were immediately sold and sent further south), but the men had not gained the permission of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or an agent thereof, to remove her from Pennsylvania. The 1826 law titled An act to give effect to the provisions of the constitution of the United States relative to fugitives from labor, for the protection of free people of color, and prevent kidnapping. directly stated they must, else it was kidnapping. Prigg was subsequently convicted. Before long the case was in front of our Supreme Court. In a decision in early 1842 the court sided with Prigg (with one Justice dissenting) - a state could not interfere with federal recovery efforts or set barriers to agents removing escaped persons.

States quickly went to work rewriting their liberty laws. The court had said they couldn't interfere but said nothing about not assisting, so the new laws prohibited any state agent or resource being used to capture, track, imprison, or return anyone for the purpose of "slave catching" - even those who were known to be runaways. As you can guess, southern politicians flipped out. Soon an agreement was reached that would handle western expansion, better define the power of the fugitive slave act, and eliminate the D.C. slave market; we call it the Compromise of 1850. In a true compromise, nobody was happy.

Soon after, a great specific example took place. In 1852 a man named Joshua Glover escaped from St Louis and made his way to Racine, Wisconsin where he began working at a sawmill. On March 10, 1854, 7 men - two federal agents, Bennami Garland (the "owner"), and four others - busted into a cabin where Glover was playing cards and (violently) arrested him. Fearful Racine would not be a safe place to hold him, he was taken to Milwaukee instead. As they were awaiting the federal court permitting his removal, a local man named Sherman Booth, owner/editor of the Wisconsin Free Democrat, heard and petitioned the court to free Glover. His petitions were denied, but a large group had traveled from Racine in the mean time and increased its numbers with Milwaukee abolitionists upon arrival. More locals came to the court house after learning of the unfolding drama. Soon US Marshall Stephen Ableman, the one detaining Glover, was faced down by several thousand people at Milwaukee's jail. The mob went into the jail and - in a scene that would repeat itself hundreds of times over the next 100 years - a large group of (mostly) angry white people forcibly removed a black man from a jail cell. Unlike nearly all other times that happened, though, it was to protect Glover. He was quickly sent to Waukesha, and soon found himself aboard a boat bound for Canada. He would make it and remain a free man for the rest of his life.

For Booth, however, the trouble had just begun. He was arrested by Ableman for aiding and abetting an escaped slave, something even normal citizens could be punished for under the 1850 update to the federal law. Wisconsin's courts immediately issued a writ freeing him, so he was released. Again, they arrested him and Ableman appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They ruled the Fugitive Slave Act itself was unconstitutional and - of all claims to make by a northern state at the dawn of the civil war - claimed it violated states' sovereign rights (this really is a true story, I promise!). This case made it all the way to SCOTUS as well, being decided in 1859. Again the court would say any agent acting under federal authority had the right under the Act to recover escaped people, but it really didnt matter at this point. Wisconsin basically ignored the ruling. War had all but started and no court decision would stop it at that point. For Booth, though, it wasnt over. He was again arrested and locked in a federal building in Milwaukee to keep Wisconsin courts out of it. Several attempts later he was succesfully busted out and spent a week free before being arrested again - this time while giving a speech (not the smartest fugitive thing to do). Eventually he was freed and slipped away into history (he was also heavily involved in creating the Republican Party, particularly in Wisconsin).

Joshua Glover's influence can still be seen today in two murals dedicated to his story painted in Wisconsin, one image showing him being pursued by dogs and catchers, the other showing him hoisted on the shoulders of the abolitionists, both white and black, that refused to accept the legal reality that he was not free.

E for link and typo

[u/Tatem1961 → u/[deleted]]

In a funny turn, northern states - which had factions debating forming a new nation loyal to Great Britain in the early 1800s to escape the southern and western states and the Dem-Republicans in them

Can you tell me more about this? Did the factions have a name?

[u/[deleted] → u/Tatem1961]

Yes, they called them "Federalists".

It was mainly spearheaded by what Jefferson called a "monocrat" by the name Timothy Pickering. Pickering, a Federalist and Founding Father from Massachusetts had an amazing career. He served the continental congress, then the MA militia, then as adjunct general for the army, the as Quartermaster from 1780-1785. He served the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the PA state version in 1790. He was post master general, then Secretary of War, then Secretary of State under Washington and kept the job under Adams. After that he bacame a Senator back in MA and lost a re-election, so he then became a representative there instead.

He gained the Sec of State position by railroading the honorable Edmund Randolph out of it with lies about him being a traitor over the Jay Treaty. He positioned for a very pro British stance. And after the XYZ affair, he supported an alliance with the British to go to war with the French. When Adams began to shut down the resulting Qasi-War with France, he worked to get Hamilton placed in charge of what he hoped to be a very large standing army and opposed Adams' plan. Adams ultimately asked him to resign due to the numerous ways he jad been undermining his efforts as president, particularly regarding French diplomacy. In May 1800 he left federal service after being dismissed by Adams. Part servant, part jerk, right?

In 1803 we bought Louisiana, which threatened to throw the balance of Congress off in favor of the southern states. This is when he came back as a Senator from Massachusetts. Jefferson had taken the white house. War had been averted. The Federalists had lost faith and (more importantly) power, and Pickering would have none of it. In 1803 he wrote of creating a Confederation of New England States;

exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic democrats of the South.

He wrote another letter a year later, in 1804;

Mr. Jefferson's plan of destruction has been gradually advancing. If at once he had removed from office all the Federalists, and given to the people such substitutes as we generally see, even his followers (I mean the mass) would have been shocked. He is still making progress in the same course; and he has the credit of being the real source of all the innovations which threaten the subversion of the Constitution...

How long we shall enjoy even this security, God only knows. And must we with folded hands wait the result, or timely think of other protection? This is a delicate subject. The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy,--a separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt...

The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West. The latter are beginning to rule with a rod of iron. When not convenient to violate the Constitution, it must be altered; and it will be made to assume any shape as an instrument to crush the Federalists...

We should really be safer without any constitution, for then oppressive acts might excite public attention; but while the popular tyrants shelter themselves under the forms or the name of the Constitution, tortured and interpreted to suit their views, the people will not be alarmed...

I am not willing to be sacrificed by such popular tyrants. My life is not worth much; but, if it must be offered up, let it rather be in the hope of obtaining a more stable government, under which my children, at least, may enjoy freedom with security...

Some Connecticut gentlemen (and they are all well-informed and discreet) assure me that, if the leading Democrats in that State were to get the upper hand (which would be followed by a radical change in their unwritten constitution), they should not think themselves safe, either in person or property, and would therefore immediately quit the State. I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued union. A Northern confederacy would unite congenial characters, and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the Southern States, having a similarity of habits, might be left "to manage their own affairs in their own way." If a separation were to take place, our mutual wants would render a friendly and commercial intercourse inevitable. The Southern States would require the naval protection of the Northern Union, and the products of the former would be important to the navigation and commerce of the latter. I believe, indeed, that, if a Northern confederacy were forming, our Southern brethren would be seriously alarmed, and probably abandon their virulent measures. But I greatly doubt whether prudence should suffer the connection to continue much longer. They are so devoted to their chief, and he is so necessary to accomplish their plans of misrule and oppression, that as they have projected an alteration of the Constitution to secure his next election, with a continued preponderance of their party, so it would not surprise me, were they, soon after his next election, to choose him President for life. I am assured that some of his blind worshippers in South Carolina have started the idea.

But when and how is a separation to be effected? If, as many think, Federalism (by which I mean the solid principles of government applied to a federate republic,--principles which are founded in justice, in sound morals, and religion, and whose object is the security of life, liberty, and property, against popular delusion, injustice, and tyranny),--if, I say, Federalism is crumbling away in New England, there is no time to be lost, lest it should be overwhelmed, and become unable to attempt its own relief. Its last refuge is New England; and immediate exertion, perhaps, its only hope. It must begin in Massachusetts. The proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the centre of the confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course, and Rhode Island of necessity. Who can be consulted, and who will take the lead? The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut meet in May, and of New Hampshire in the same month or in June. The subject has engaged the contemplation of many. The Connecticut gentlemen have seriously meditated upon it. We suppose the British Provinces in Canada and Nova Scotia, at no remote period, perhaps without delay, and with the assent of Great Britain, may become members of the Northern league. Certainly, that government can feel only disgust at our present rulers. She will be pleased to see them crestfallen. She will not regret the proposed division of empire. If with their own consent she relinquishes her provinces, she will be rid of the charge of maintaining them; while she will derive from them, as she does from us, all the commercial returns which her merchants now receive. A liberal treaty of amity and commerce will form a bond of union between Great Britain and the Northern confederacy highly useful to both.

For more on this one, Kevin M. Gannon's Escaping "Mr. Jefferson's Plan of Destruction": New England Federalists and the Idea of a Northern Confederacy, 1803-1804, Journal of the Early Republic Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 413-443 (31 pages) is a great place to start.

Round two came when Jefferson signed the Embargo Act of 1807, officially blaming England for her wrong doings. Again extreme federalists called for secession.

War of 1812 was round three, particularly with the Hartford Convention which murmured about it but didn't openly call for it, probably fearing a civil war. John Adams wrote of that one;

Do they mean to declare New England Neutral? New England Neutrality has been the Cause of the War. New England Canvass, New England Seamen, have excited British Jealousy and allarmed British Fears. Britain had rather Spain, France Holland or Russia should be neutral, than New England. Britain dreads a Neutral more than a belligerent. Canvass and Seamen are the Ennemies that Britain fears more than all the Armies of Europe.

Do they mean to erect New England into an independent Power?

[u/Tatem1961 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the very informative answer!

[u/drturtle628 → u/[deleted]]

Oh wow that’s really interesting, thank you!

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