Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves .
LAND OF HOPE - CHAPTER #9 "THE GATHERING STORM" PAGE #159
"To put it even more simply, the heart of the deal was that the slave South would be induced to accept the likely permanent minority status it feared, on condition that the North agreed to measures that would protect, in an active and affirmative way, the operation of the "peculiar institution" that had come to be deemed essential to the southern way of life."
"More than ever, the country still had the wolf by the ear - and the great gains of the Mexican War had only augmented the size and ferocity of the wolf. The Compromise of 1850 did not effect any ultimate solutions, but it did buy time for the Union's future. It reduced political tensions, quieted secession talk, and allowed perspective and breathing room for the emergence of other, better solutions." It would allow the country to turn its attention back to its real business, the taming and settlement of a giant continent."
A Ride for Liberty Born in 1824 in Lovell, Maine, Eastman Johnson took to art early in life, setting up a portrait studio in Augusta when he was 18 years old. He later worked in Boston and Washington, D.C., and in 1849 traveled to Europe where he received extensive training in drawing and painting.
In 1859, Johnson opened an exhibit in New York which featured Negro Life in the South. It was a turning point in his career -- one which would lead to his becoming, for many years, the foremost genre painter in the United States.
This painting, A Ride for Liberty -- The Fugitive Slaves, depicts a black family fleeing toward freedom. It is based on an incident which Johnson witnessed during the Civil War battle of Manassas. The mother, holding a small child in her arms, looks back apprehensively for possible pursuer.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. The book was loosely based on a visit to a plantation in Kentucky. The book, which exposed the evils of slavery, was a best seller in the North and helped the abolitionists’ cause. Southerners, on the other hand, believed the book exaggerated or lied about slavery.
It sold 300,000 copies in the first year, by far broke every sales record of any book ever published, ever, anywhere. Reprinted into at least 20 languages in its first five years of existence. Made into stage plays within two years. It brought an awareness to the slavery problem as never before.
" . the appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin could not have been more aptly timed, as a poignant and humanizing glimpse into the harsh realities of slave life and the perils faced by freedom seeking slaves. " Land of Hope page #159
