1. Fugitive Slave Act
Required citizens to catch and return runaway slaves to their “owner”
Citizen who assisted runaway slaves could be fined or imprisoned
No evidence needed to claim someone as your slave

2. Northern Resistance To Fugitive Slave Laws
Many Northerners feel that this forces them to support the institution of slavery
Some respond by nullifying these laws and passing personal liberty laws
Call for the arrest of slave catchers, charge them with kidnapping

3. Northern Blacks Mobilize
In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists fight with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive slaves hidden in the town.
One member of the posse was killed 
The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress, requiring the return of all escaped slaves to their owners in the South
In the aftermath of the so-called Christiana Riot, 37 African Americans and one white man were arrested and charged with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

4. Underground Railroad
Northern abolitionists and free blacks also resisted by helping slaves escape to freedom
Runaway slaves strived to reach a final destination in the North or Canada

5. Underground Railroad
Slaves and “conductors” would use complex signals and hiding places to escape the dangers of being caught
Songs often used Biblical language to give directions or information on escape attempts

6. Harriet Tubman
Led slaves along the Underground Railroad
A fugitive slave herself, she made trips down to the South to lead these people
Slave owners offered a large reward for her, but she was never captured
Harriet Tubman made 19 trips into the south to help more than 300 slaves escape

7. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1852-Harriet Beecher Stowe writes a book condemning slavery,
Story of a slave named Tom and his brutal slave owner
Convinced northerners of the evils of slavery
Convinced southerners of the North’s incurable prejudice towards southern property rights
Martin Delany wrote a book about a slave who rises up and murders his captors
This was different from Stowe’s “Uncle Tom” who was gentle and submitted to slavery
White Southerners responded by writing books about how slave owners gave slaves a good life.

8. Other books Attacked the capitalist wage system as worse than slavery
Sociology of the South (1854) and Cannibals All! (1857)
Pro-slavery books by George Fitzhugh
Argued that slavery was better for slaves than the conditions of northern “wage slaves”
Impending Crisis of the South
Used stats to demonstrate slave labor had a negative impact on Southern economy
Banned in South, popular in the north
Attacked the capitalist wage system as worse than slavery
1857 book of non-fiction by Hinton R. Helper a NC native