“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Sept 18, 1850 – Pres. Millard Fillmore signed the 2nd Federal Fugitive Slave Act into law. An attempt to implement the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, the act, at best, had serious constitutional issues. In response, as had been done under the...
In his 1850 pamphlet, “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves,” Lysander Spooner gave us a strategy for how to stop unconstitutional acts: resist. But the philosophical foundation he built this on was nothing new under the sun. In fact, the famed anarchist was merely...
Personal Liberty Laws in response to the Federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 were some of the most successful and important nullification efforts in history. But they didn’t come out of nowhere. Quaker opposition to slavery had a long tradition and led to the...