Fugitive Slave Act

Famous quotes containing the words fugitive slave, fugitive, slave and/or act:

    It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Is this what all these soldiers, all this training, have been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue, I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    You live in a puss-hole, you act accordingly.
    Guy Trosper, U.S. screenwriter, and John Frankenheimer. Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster)