Historical Committee: 1850
The Fugitive Slave Act
Chairs: James Macksoud, Julian Lucas, Ian Marshall
The year is 1850 and Congress is debating a series of bills aimed to please both slave states and free states and end the political deadlock that is tearing the country apart. One of the most important bills on the table is the Fugitive Slave Act. This bill is aimed to please southern slave owners who are angered that their slaves can often flee into northern free states and face no repercussion from the local authorities.
Currently runaway slaves need to be returned to their masters, this has been the law since 1793 when congress passed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. However, since then many northern states have refused to uphold the law. The local police and law officers are in some cases forbidden by state law from upholding the federal requirement to jail slaves and return them to their southern masters. In other cases police officers and average citizens can simply ignore the law without fear of serious consequence. Because of this thousands of slaves leave slave states every year and reside safely in the northern free states.
The new law would force local police and citizens in the north to enforce the old Fugitive Salve
Act by placing a $1000 fine on any individual who impedes in the enforcement of the law. If this law is passed it will mean that police and citizens in the north, who may object to slavery on moral grounds, will have to obey the law and return runaway slaves, or else they will suffer serious fines and/or imprisonment. In addition the only requirements to jail an African-American living in the north would be a claim from a southern slave-owner that the man in question was his property. The accused will have no right to trial and will be unable to testify on their behalf.
Northern abolitionists and those who think slavery is morally wrong will have trouble accepting this new law and this may cause a greater backlash towards slavery in general, however, failure to pass this law or make other concessions to the southern states will lead to more political instability in the United States, and who knows where that will end…
For More Information on this Issue Consult the Following Websites:
HYPERLINK "http://www.nationalcenter.org/FugitiveSlaveAct.html" http://www.nationalcenter.org/FugitiveSlaveAct.html
HYPERLINK "http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h137.html" http://www.u-shistory.com/pages/h137.html

HYPERLINK "http://law.jrank.org/pages/7045/Fugitive-Slave-Act-1850.html" http://law.jrank.org/pages/7045/Fugitive-Slave-Act-1850.html
HYPERLINK "http://www.suite101.com/content/the-fugitive-slave-act-of-1850-and-northernresponse-a223971" http://www.suite101.com/content/the-fugitive-slave-act-of-1850-and-northernresponse-a223971
HYPERLINK "http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASfugitive.htm" http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASfugitive.htm
M IDDLE S CHOOL M ODEL C ONGRESS 2010
Committee: Special Historical
Committee
Bill No: MidMCSHC10-2
Principal Authors: Ian Marshall
Co-Authors: Julian Lucas, James
Macksoud

Title of Bill: An Act to Bolster the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
B E I T E NACTED B Y M IDDLE S CHOOL M ODEL C ONGRESS 2010 A SSEMBLED
1 Whereas the Constitution of the United States mandates in Article 4 Section 2 that, “A 2
Person charged… who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on
3 demand
… of the State from which he fled, be delivered,” and that, “No Person held to
4 Service or Labour in one State, … escaping into another, shall, … be discharged from 5 such Service or Labour”;
Whereas the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was created in order to 6 uphold those mandates; Whereas many states and people have taken it upon themselves to 7 disregard those mandates and laws due to personal or locally popular conviction; 8 Whereas all of the United States must be held to one standard; Whereas laws and issues 9 so important to the function of many of those states must not be allowed to be different or 10 ignored in others.
Enacted by the Middle School Model Congress 2010:
Section 1: All Federal Marshals and like officials are hereby obligated to fulfill all their duties as servants of the law, and as such must carry out all warrants when commanded to due so, regardless of any personal bias or conviction.
These warrants do encompass, and especially include, those held is servitude to another.
Section 2: When these officials refuse to carry out their duty under the law, they shall be subject to a fine of $1000.
Sectoin 3: A fugitive servant, when found in another state when a warrant is issued for their arrest and return, shall be obligated to continue servitude in the state of origin, regardless of the laws and practices of the state found in.
Sectoin 4: Any persons found to be knowingly and intentionally aiding and harboring a fugitive, or preventing the discovery, arrest and return of that fugitive, shall be subject to fines up to $1000 and jail time up to 6 months.
If it is found that this person successfully aided the escape of a fugitive, they shall be obliged to pay damages of $1000 each to the previous owner of the fugitive.
Section 5: When a federal officer (commissioner or marshal) arrests a supposed fugitive and decides that the person is the fugitive named in the warrant, and that decision results in return to the owners of the fugitive, that officer shall be rewarded with $10 dollars. When the decision proves otherwise, they shall receive $5. a. These rewards extend to any deputy or other aid to these federal officers.
Section 6: This bill will take effect one year after passage.