Fugitive Slave Act

Cultural

A law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, which provided southern slaveholders with legal weapons to capture slaves who had escaped to the free states. The law was highly unpopular in the North and helped to convert many previously indifferent northerners to antislavery.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

For the slaveowners, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, requiring that all Black people who had escaped from slavery be returned to their owners.

From Literature

As a woman with little political power, Stowe turned to literary activism to advance the abolitionist movement and fight against the recently passed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850—which she had already defied by housing escaped enslaved people.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 compelled Northerners to collaborate in hunting freedom-seekers.

From The Wall Street Journal

Franklin Pierce, although a Northerner, fiercely defended slavery while signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; he was a drunkard to boot.

From Salon

On a recent episode of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Bouie about why Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions remind him of the fallout from the Fugitive Slave Act, and the lessons and warnings that can be drawn from that law.

From Slate

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023