Click on the headline to link to a "Boston Sunday Globe" article, dated April 11, 2010, concerning the initial reaction of Boston society to enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law that was strengthened by the Compromise of 1850.
Markin comment:
Boston is rightly seen as a "hotbed" of slavery abolitionism but, as this article points out, that was not always the case. Moreover, as I have noted elsewhere, the prosperous merchant/factory owner sector of the capitalist class in pre-Civil War Boston was dependent, very dependent, on Southern cotton so that in 1850, at least, the federal and state authorities were able to find more than enough "bravos" to enforce the hated Fugitive Slave Law.
Markin comment:
Boston is rightly seen as a "hotbed" of slavery abolitionism but, as this article points out, that was not always the case. Moreover, as I have noted elsewhere, the prosperous merchant/factory owner sector of the capitalist class in pre-Civil War Boston was dependent, very dependent, on Southern cotton so that in 1850, at least, the federal and state authorities were able to find more than enough "bravos" to enforce the hated Fugitive Slave Law.
