Radical Antislavery and Personal Liberty Laws In Antebellum Ohio, 1803-1857

This study examines Ohio abolitionists' struggle to adopt personal liberty laws between 1803 and 1857. During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, despite powerful white supremacist forces, a significantly pro-freedom fugitive slave policy prevailed in Ohio. As militant abolitionism emerged in the early 1830s and radical abolitionists called on the state legislature to provide stronger legal protection for fugitive slaves and free blacks, however, anti-abolitionists sought to establish a strong proslavery fugitive slave policy in order to suppress radical abolitionism.;In 1839, the Kentucky legislature's demand for a more effective fugitive slave law acted as the catalyst for the Democratic-controlled Ohio legislature to pass a comprehensive fugitive slave law. The statute not only provided for strong state action in recapturing and removing fugitive slaves but also sought to neutralize abolitionists' aid or rescue operations.;The 1839 Fugitive Slave Law, born of an anti-abolitionist backlash, had the unintended consequence of inspiring intense antislavery agitation for its repeal in the early 1840s. Yet although the law was repealed in 1843, its repeal did not lead to the adoption of follow-up measures for the protection of blacks, fugitive and free, as was becoming common in other Northern states. From 1843 on, the struggle to adopt personal liberty laws defined antislavery politics in Ohio. Unlike the general trend across the North, in which Free Soil and Republican political antislavery focused on the restriction of slavery from the western territories, the slave-centered abolitionism of the personal liberty politics remained dominant in Ohio. Even when sectional conflicts escalated and Republican leaders stressed the necessity of political compromise and conciliation, Ohio radicals persisted in radical antislavery campaigns to repudiate the federal Fugitive Slave Law and adopt personal liberty laws.;Anti-abolitionists' hostility to abolitionism successfully combined with their fear of radicalism of personal liberty laws to frustrate their adoption in Ohio until 1857. Nevertheless, the development of the personal liberty politics pressed for the realignment of political forces, finally breaking down the walls of anti-abolitionism and leading to the passage of personal liberty laws in 1857.