346 Chapter 13 The Coming of the Civil War
With the defeat of a Greek Army in 1826, the Victorious Turks sold
3,000 Greek women and children at slave auctions in Constantinople.
The Greek Slave, by the American sculptor Hiram Powers (1844),
caused a sensation. How would whites feel if theiryoung women
were sold as slaves?
Source: Hiram Powers, Greek Slave1847. Marble, 65^1 ⁄ 2 in. H (166.4 cm). Collection
of The Newark Museum. Gift of Franklin Murphy, Jr., 1926. Photographer:
RichardGoodbody. Photograph © The Newark Museum.Slave-Catchers Come North
The political settlement between the North and
South that Henry Clay designed—the Compromise
of 1850—lasted only four years (see Chapter 11).
Its central provisions inevitably sparked contro-
versy. Allowing new territories to decide the ques-
tion of slavery themselves ensured that the issue
would continually resurface. Americans continued
to migrate westward by the thousands, and as long
as slaveholders could carry their human property
into federally controlled territories, northern
resentment would smolder. The Fugitive Slave Act,
another component of the Compromise of 1850,
imposed fines for hiding or rescuing fugitive slaves;
but abolitionists evaded the law and agitated to
have it overturned.
Shortly after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act,
James Hamlet was seized in New York City, con-
victed, and returned to slavery in Maryland without
even being allowed to communicate with his wife and
children. The New York black community was out-
raged, and with help from white neighbors it swiftly
raised $800 to buy his freedom. In 1851 Euphemia
Williams, who had lived for years as a free woman in
Pennsylvania, was seized, her presumed owner claim-
ing also her six children, all Pennsylvania-born. A fed-
eral judge released the Williamses, but the case caused
alarm in the North.
Abolitionists often interfered with the enforce-
ment of the law. When two Georgians came to Boston
to reclaim William and Ellen Craft, admitted fugitives,
This painting by Thomas S. Noble describes the story of Margaret Garner, a slave who escaped with her family
across the frozen Ohio River to Cincinnati. When apprehended by slavecatchers, she killed her daughter rather
than return her to slavery. Garner’s story inspired Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved(1987).