The Crisis Over Fugitives and the Coming of the Civil War

After years working for the In May 1854, federal troops northern “Subterranean Pass In March 1849, Virginia slave arrived in Boston to guarantee Way,” John Brown took his fight Henry Brown traveled inside a the return of a fugitive named south. He first led a raid into box shipped via Adams Express Anthony Burns the same week Missouri in 1858 that freed a to escape to freedom. His 24- as passage of the Kansas- dozen slaves. Then in October hour journey from Richmond to Nebraska Act. The Burns case 1859, he launched his failed raid Philadelphia was perhaps the galvanized anti-slavery opinion against the federal arsenal in most sensational slave escape like no other, but it was a Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His in American history. The Milwaukee fugitive incident that trial polarized the nation and Underground Railroad agents Resurrection of year which led to a landmark 1854 broadside turned the 1860 election in a greeting him in Philadelphia Henry “Box” Brown Supreme Court decision in Anthony Burns referendum on its future. included James Miller McKim Abelman v. Booth (1859) and William Still. outlawing northern personal liberty laws altogether.

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John Brown

In September 1850 the Congress passed a tougher federal fugitive In March 1857, the Supreme slave law as part of the Compromise Court finally ruled against Dred of 1850. The new law infuriated many Scott, who had sued for his northerners. Violent resistance freedom along with his wife occurred in places such as Boston, under the doctrine of “once Mass., Christiana, Pa, and Syracuse, free, always free.” The NY, thereby inflaming sectional decision denied blacks tensions to greater heights. One citizenship rights, repudiated consequence of this new the doctrine of state comity, confrontational era was that Missouri and invalidated the Missouri slaves Dred and Harriet Scott found Compromise. Scott was freed Dred Scott and Harriet Scott their earlier freedom suit victories in Scene from Christiana “Riot,” Sept. 11, 1851 anyway in May by the heirs of his first owner. circuit court reversed in 1852

 2009 Matthew Pinsker Images and additional documents at House Divided, http://housedivided.dickinson.edu and Gilder Lehrman Institute, www.gilderlehrman.org. See also tools and resources at Underground Railroad Digital Classroom, http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ugrr