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The Fugitive Slave Clause was a stipulation in the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3) that enslaved persons who escaped to another state had to be returned to their previous enslaver if discovered. An essential component of the Compromise of 1850 included a strengthening of that clause, through what was known as the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. The bill served as a concession to southern congressmen who wanted increased power to capture formerly enslaved persons. Congress passed the bill on September 18, 1850, and President Millard Fillmore signed it into law on the same day.

This is an antislavery poem by John Greenleaf Whittier on a broadside with an accompanying woodcut image.

In this story, a young boy learns the history behind the abolitionist song “John Brown’s Body.”

This argument from William Goodell underscores the moral and legal precedents used to break up families for commodification.

In this speech, Alexander H. Stephens justifies the Confederacy’s secession, arguing that the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy is the maintenance of the institution of slavery and the belief in the inferiority of African Americans.