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Now that you’ve learned a little about what laws can tell you and how lawsuits get started, it is important to think about why people might decide not to follow the rules. In 1850, slavery was still legal in many states, though it had been abolished in Michigan. Because slavery was only legal in some states, slaves tried to escape slavery by running away. In 1850, the United States Congress passed a law called the Compromise of 1850 which gave slave owners “the right to organize a posse at any point in the United States to aid in recapturing runaway slaves.” Courts and police everywhere in the United States were required to help them. Private citizens were also supposed to assist in the recapture of runaways. People who were caught helping slaves were put in jail and made to pay fines to the slave owner.
Many disagreed with the laws and said so. In 1836, residents of Ann Arbor founded the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society. Not everyone agreed with their goals. The Allen family is an interesting example. Born to a slaveowning family in Virginia, Ann Allen believed that slavery should be legal and often complained about the difficulty of keeping a house without them. John Allen, on the other hand, was one of the Anti-Slavery Societies founding members.
In the 1840s, the Anti-Slavery Society published a newspaper called Signal of Liberty that included stories about slaves' treatment in the South and success stories of those who had escaped North. For example, read this article from April 23, 1843:
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Under this head we gave last week an account of six fugitives who passed through this place, and received assistance from our hands—bound for Canada. We take great pleasure in announcing to our readers that they have all landed, as we intended they should, safe on British soil. When informed that they were beyond the grasp of their tyrannical masters, safe in the "Queen's dominions," they joined in singing a hymn of praise to God for their safe deliverance from American slavery. But some of our neighbors accuse us of being "worse than horse thieves," because we have given to the colored man a helping hand in his perilous journey. We are also held up as "transgressors of the law," and "having no regard for the civil authority." To all such we would say that we have transgressed no law of the United States, nor of the State in which we live. We have obeyed the promptings of humanity in the cause. We have pursued the rule of the Savior, and hope to have similar opportunities of "doing unto others as we would they should do unto us. |
Some other people took more direct action and hid slaves in their homes, helping them get across the border to Canada. Guy Beckley, who was edited the newspaper for a while, was one of these people. You can still see his house today on Pontiac Trail.
Just to Think About: