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    Fugitive Slave Act

    Uploaded by

    Gabriel Burke-Kaiser

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Fugitive Slave Act

    Uploaded by

    Gabriel Burke-Kaiser
    21 views2 pages

    Original Title

    Fugitive slave act

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

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    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    21 views2 pages

    Fugitive Slave Act

    Uploaded by

    Gabriel Burke-Kaiser

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Summary-

    The fugitive slave act was created due to a dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia in

    which a free african american named John Davis in Pennsylvania was kidnapped by three

    Virginians and the Pennsylvanian mayor was unable to prosecute them. So the mayor

    appealed to George Washington who after a brief interim handed it over to the congress.

    Congress created a committee to write a bill which after four different iterations became

    the fugitive slave act of 1793. Originally the bill was supposed to allow to bring both the

    african american and the kidnappers into a hearing however by using a series of bloc’s

    the slave owning south were able to change the contents of the bill to heavily

    discriminate against the african american in question while keeping the kidnapper

    relatively safe against legal action. In the end the three kidnappers using the protection of

    the fugitive slave act were never brought to trial and John davis lost his freedom.

    Critical thinking-

    The author of “The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave

    Law of 1793” is Paul Finkelman, a well respected historian with over 150 scholarly

    articles published. His work has been cited in five decisions by the United States

    Supreme Court. Most recently Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoted him in her unanimous

    decision in Tims v. Indiana. He is now 70 and wrote the article in 1990 at the age of 40
    and is currently the John E. Murray Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh

    School of Law. he has not spoken out as a democrat or republican perhaps to try and keep

    his opinion as unbiased as posible. The article was published by the journal of southern

    history, their mission statement reads “The Southern Historical Association was

    organized on November 2, 1934 and charged with promoting an "investigative rather than

    a memorial approach" to southern history. Its objectives are the promotion of interest and

    research in southern history; the collection and preservation of the South's historical

    records; the encouragement of state and local historical societies in the South; and the

    support and promotion of history education at all levels throughout the region.” The

    article while informative in some aspects left out details in the bill such as specific

    wordings that could be used exploitatively. I think this was not a conscious choice but

    rather oversimplification to broaden the audience of the article. As such I do not fault the

    author or publisher in this.

    Finkelman, Paul. “The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave
    Law of 1793.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 56, no. 3, 1990, pp. 397–422.
    JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2210284. Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.

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