However, as influential as Stowe's novel and the slave narratives were in shaping public opinion and conveying the peril and daring of the Underground Railroad, it was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that had the most dramatic and direct impact on the plight of runaways and those committed to helping them. The act augmented the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 by mandating not only the right of owners, their agents, and federal authorities to seize runaways in free states but also the legal obligation of private citizens to assist in the recaptures. Those found guilty of helping fugitives faced strict fines and even imprisonment. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was cheered by Southern slave interests but roundly denounced throughout the North. Even Northerners who were unsympathetic to abolitionism resented the imposition of proslavery law onto their region. Free blacks as...