ght again "threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity."(p.257) Any captured person who claimed to be a free black and not a runaway slave was denied the right to trial by jury. Citizens who attempted to hide a runaway or obstruct enforcement of the law were subject to heavy penalties. In document D, it was said that the F.S.L. is a statue which enacts the crime of kidnapping, a crime on one footing with arson and murder. A man's right to liberty is an inalienable as his right to life... its a high crime and misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment to resist the reenslaving a man on the coast of America.' In the flyer created by an abolitionist, it pointed out that man was able to capture free or runaway slaves' to be on the lookout. This flyer had no right to allow whites to kidnap a man due to the color of his skin, free or runaway. Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, both supported a variety of reforms, especially the antislavery movement. Emerson's essays argued for self-reliance, independent thinking and the primacy of spiritual, matters over material ones. Thoreau used observations of nature to discover essential truths about life and the universe. The Fugitive Slave Law is definitely a reason why the Constitution ended up in national discord. It was in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law that made the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe so popular and made Pierce's 'hope' unlikely. In her book she tried to portray the entire range experiences a slave could have, from good owners to bad, from being bought and sold to attempts to escape to freedom. Southerners condemned the "untruths" in the novel and looked upon it one more proof of the North's incurable prejudice against the South's way of life." Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Fugitive Slave Law both led to national discord in the Constitution. Due to the proposal of extending the Missouri Compromise l...
