Explaining Fugitive Slave Act Claim Highlighted by Obama

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September 26, 2013 Explaining ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ Claim Highlighted by Obama In a speech defending his health-care law Thursday, President Barack Obama ran through a list of Obamacare critics’ claims, among them that the law is the “most dangerous legislation ever.” But one reference may have caught audience members particularly off guard. “You had a state representative somewhere say that it’s as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act,” Mr. Obama told audience members at a Maryland community college. “Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that lets slave owners get their runaway slaves back.” “I mean, these are quotes,” he added. “I’m not making this stuff up.” Indeed, he wasn’t. The man who charged Mr. Obama with creating a health-care system akin to slavery was Bill O’Brien, a representative in New Hampshire’s state legislature and former speaker of the House. In August, Mr. O’Brien spoke at an Americans for Prosperity rally in New Hampshire and likened the Affordable Care Act to an 1850 pro-slavery federal law. “What is Obamacare?” Mr. O’Brien said his remarks. “It is a law as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that allowed slave owners to come to New Hampshire and seize African Americans and use the federal courts to take them back to federal … to slave states.” “Barack Obama and our allies fooled us long enough to pass a law that is clearly among the worst ever enacted by Congress,” added Mr. O’Brien, who is backed by the tea party and recently said he was cancelling plans to enter the race for a U.S. House seat after taking a job at software company. Mr. O’Brien, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal following Mr. Obama’s speech, stood by his words and said he had made a “fair comparison.” “Each of [the laws] was an assault by the federal government on the freedom of individuals and the rights of states to make choices on how to approach such individual rights,” he said. “The federal government with the Fugitive Slave Act enacted something that was repugnant to individual liberty. So, too, the federal government enacted Obamacare, and this direct order to individuals to buy a service was repugnant to the division of responsibilities that the Founding Fathers so carefully put together in our Constitution.” He added that if Mr. Obama tried to understand the opposition’s point of view, he would “engage in a lot less demagoguery.” In his speech, Mr. Obama said Republicans warning of Obamacare’s consequences are painting a picture of Armageddon. “All this would be funny if it wasn’t so crazy,” he said.

Defining unknown words:

Define the following in your own words.

Akin- Assault-

Repugnant-

Demagoguery-

Elicit-

Questions:

1. What are individual rights? Give examples.

2. Why does Bill O’Brien compare Obamacare to the Fugitive Slave Act? Explain his comparison.

3. Why did the Fugitive Slave Act take away US Citizens’ individual freedom?

4. What reaction does the use of the term “Fugitive Slave Act” elicit?