Regulating Slavery: Deck-Stacking and Credible Commitment in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

In 1850, Congress delegated federal judicial powers to a new bureaucracy that was devoted to capturing escaped slaves in free states and returning them to their owners. The Fugitive Slave Act was an attempt to enhance the credibility of a commitment made in the Constitution's Article IV § 2, which had gone unenforced for more than half a century. This article demonstrates how Congress engaged in deck-stacking , engineering the administrative structure and judicial procedures of the fugitive slave rendition process in ways that favored slave-holding interests. Analysis of votes by members of Congress on final passage of the act and amendments to the act demonstrate the political influences on choices of process. I demonstrate that regional (free versus slave state), partisan (Whig versus Democrat), and electoral (Free Soil party support) calculations all play a role in determining the likelihood of a legislator voting for the antislavery position. Moreover, political conflict was muted when amendments dealt mainly with structural issues, but was amplified when the amendment's content was procedural. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.