[Sidenote: Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. _McMaster_, 341-343.] [Sidenote: Results of passage of this act. _Higginson_, 281; _Source-Book_, 282-284.] [Sidenote: The "Underground Railway." _Source-Book_, 260-263.] 347. The Fugitive Slave Act.--The Constitution provides that persons held to service in one state escaping into another state shall be delivered up upon claim of the person to whom such service may be due. Congress, in 1793, had passed an act to carry out this provision of the Constitution. But this law had seldom been enforced, because its enforcement had been left to the states, and public opinion in the North was opposed to the return of fugitive slaves. The law of 1850 gave the enforcement of the act to United States officials. The agents of slave owners claimed many persons as fugitives. But few were returned to the South. The important result of these attempts to enforce the law was to strengthen Northern public opinion against slavery. It led to redoubled efforts to help runaway slaves through the Northern states to Canada. A regular system was established. This was called the "Underground Railway." In short, instead of bringing about "a union of hearts," the Compromise of 1850 increased the ill feeling between the people of the two sections of the country. [Sidenote: "Uncle Tom's Cabin."] [Sidenote: Effects of this book.] 348. "Uncle Tom's Cabin."--It was at this time that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In this story she set forth the pleasant side of slavery--the light-heartedness and kind-heartedness of the negroes. In it she also set forth the unpleasant side of slavery--the whipping of human beings, the selling of human beings, the hunting of human beings. Of course, there never was such a slave as Uncle Tom. The story is simply a wonderful picture of slavery as it appeared to a brilliant woman of the North. Hundreds of thousands of copies of this book were sold in the South as well as in the North. Plays founded on the book were acted on the stage. Southern people when reading "Uncle Tom" thought little of the unpleasant things in it: they liked the pleasant things in it. Northern people laughed at the pretty pictures of plantation life: they were moved to tears by the tales of cruelty. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the Fugitive Slave Law convinced the people of the North that bounds must be set to the extension of slavery. CHAPTER 34 THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS [Sidenote: Campaign of 1852.] [Sidenote: Pierce elected President.]