The Fugitive Slave Act, passed on September 18, 1850, sent shock waves through the free states. Prominent northern Whigs and Democrats held meetings urging people to accept the new law for the sake of keeping the nation together. They hoped northerners would fall into line behind yet another compromise with the Slave Power. For Black people living in the free states, the law was an existential threat. They recognized immediately that it not only jeopardized the many runaways among them—some of whom had lived in the free states for decades—but it also made free Black people more vulnerable than
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