Rotten before she got ripe: Wisconsin resists the Fugitive Slave Ac

This thesis examines how the general public, courts, and political leaders of Wisconsin effectively nullified enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the state during the 1850s. It compares and contrasts nullification in Wisconsin during this period with South Carolina's nullification of a federal tariff law during the 1830s, noting that, while Jeffersonian states' rights principles formed the philosophical framework for both, the nullification movement in Wisconsin was fueled primarily by popular sentiment, while the planter aristocracy had to generate popular enthusiasm for nullification in South Carolina. Finally, this thesis examines resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act elsewhere in the North, and shows that Wisconsin's reliance upon Jeffersonian states' rights principles in support of its resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act was not an isolated occurrence.