What side was the Fugitive Slave Law about?

Answer 1

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was one of a set of laws known collectively as the "Compromise of 1850" - originally drafted by Henry Clay as a package, but pushed through the Senate as individual bills. These bills included settlements about territory gained from the Mexican War, most notably the admission of California as a free state and the ending of slave trading within Washington D.C.

This Fugitive Slave Law strengthened earlier legislation, enabling slave owners or the agents to hunt down runaways in the Northern states, calling on those states to assist in the capture & return. But there was no due-process provision for those claimed to be runaway slaves, enabling slave owners to claim FREE blacks who may even have been long-time residents in the North.

These problems with the law led to widespread opposition in the North, even by those who did not oppose slavery per se. (Popular literature, esp. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, increased this opposition.) Northern states began to pass "personal liberty laws" and refuse to turn over alleged runaways to slave-hunters.

This in turn infuriated many in the South, who regarded it as a Northern failure to live up to its Constitutional obligations. (Interestingly, they argued that the federal government ought to FORCE Northern states to co-operate, a position seriously undermining their supposed desire for "limited" national government and respect for "states rights".) In fact, complaints about Northern failure to comply with the Fugitive Slave Law were a central cause cited by several Southern states in their official "Declarations of Causes" for secession.

Clearly, this law was a major bone of contention pushing the country toward secession and civil war.