It became thereafter almost a dead letter, for slaveholders found that not only did it fail to put them in possession of their slaves, but that the attempt to enforce it brought odium upon themselves and weakened the slave system.
From his autobiography, Douglass explains why the Fugitive Slave Act became ineffective and detrimental to slaveholders.
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They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.