-By Michael Zak
On this day in 1864, the Republican-controlled 38th Congress repealed the notorious Fugitive Slave Act. The law had enabled slave catchers to operate freely in northern states and to kidnap any African-American residing there. Merely by attesting that the person was an escaped slave, a slave catcher could chain him and drag him away to a southern slave market. Moreover, the law required all free people as well as all local and state and federal government officials to assist slave catchers.
A pair of Democrats, Senator James Mason (D-VA) and Senator Andrew Butler (D-SC), had written the Fugitive Slave Act.
The bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act was written by a Republican congressman from Ohio, Rufus Spalding. A Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, signed it into law.
If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. Abraham Lincoln, 1864
Celebrating our party’s heritage is not just for minority outreach. All Republicans should be proud of the fact that the GOP has been a great force for good ever since being founded in 1854 to oppose the Democrats’ pro-slavery, anti-freedom agenda.
As I often say in my speeches, “The more we Republicans know about the history of our party, the more the Democrats will worry about the future of theirs.”
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Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the nation, showing office-holders and candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating the heritage of our Grand Old Party. Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. His Grand Old Partisan blog celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. See www.RepublicanBasics.com for more information.