In fact many felt, like Frederick Douglass, that this law made
the Federal Government an agent of slavery, and they believed
that it forced local governments to become its co-conspirators.
Several Northern states passed new civil rights laws in an
attempt to protect their citizens. Frequently local vigilance
committees tried to prevent the arrest of blacks in their midst.
On other occasions mobs tried and sometimes succeeded in freeing
those already arrested, In Boston, for example, a federal marshal was
killed in a clash with one such mob. The Fugitive Slave Act
was a powerful blow at the Afro-American communities in the
North. It has been estimated that between 1850 and 1860 some
twenty thousand fled to Canada. In the face of this reversal
moderation became meaningless.
The involvement of the Federal Government in supporting slavery
led to a growing alienation within the Afro-American community.
Increasingly, militant leaders reevaluated their position on
colonization. Henry Highland Garnet and Martin R. Delany, both
workers in the abolition movement, reversed their positions and
became proponents of emigration.
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