Mar 01, 2012 - Sale 2271

Sale 2271 - Lot 57

Price Realized: $ 1,020
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. Read and ponder the Fugitive Slave Law!
Which disregards all the ordinary securities of personal liberty, which tramples on the Constitution, by its denial of the sacred rights of trial by jury, habeas corpus, etc... Single large page, removed from an issue of the Worcester Daily Spy, 18x13-1/8 inches, edges trimmed with possible loss of original black "mourning" border. Worcester, Thursday, November 7, 1850
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the rare newspaper printing of a famous broadside. The most divisive element in the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Law, which permitted any African American to be seized and sent South solely on the affidavit of anyone claiming to be his or her owner. As a result, free blacks were in constant danger of being placed in slavery. The law also stripped runaway slaves of the right to a jury trial and the right to testify in their own defense. The law further stipulated that accused runaways stand trial in front of special commissioners, not a judge or a jury, and that the commissioners be paid $10 if a fugitive was returned to slavery but only $5 if the fugitive was freed--a provision that many Northerners regarded as a bribe to ensure that any black accused of being a runaway would certainly be found guilty (the provision was justified by the supposed costs involved). And finally, the law required all U.S. citizens to assist in the capture of escapees.
This newspaper printing, in protest to the harsh law, is a smaller version of a (26 x 16-1/4 inch) broadside also issued by the Worcester Daily Spy on November 7, 1850.