What made the Fugitive Slave Act so upsetting to some Northerners?

Answer 1

Note that this did NOT just upset "abolitionists" (though it actually created some new converts to that cause), but MANY Northerners.

Part of it was simply seeing (or for other imaging) people being dragged away from their midst, in some cases folks who had lived there for some time.

Another BIG piece of this PARTICULAR legislation is that ALL of the rights and assumptions were given to the slave owner, or his agent (slave hunter). If he showed up and merely CLAIMED that a particular individual was his slave (or slave of the one he represented), he could take them and expect help doing so. But what if he were mistaken, or even lying? There was nothing to be done about it!! There was no process by which a FREE black could even appeal to show that he was NOT the claimed runaway.

To make matters worse, when civil authorities had to make a judgment in these cases, the guaranteed fees were HIGHER for deciding the case in favor of the purported slave owner! Talk about a corrupt incentive!

Thus the state court system was hijacked by a Southern interloper. Even if the plight of those being taken back to slavery (esp if wrongly identified) did not move everyone, the notion that someone else, an outsider, was running THEIR courts was a cause for anger.

Answer 2

it carried slavery into the north,even though slavery was illegal in the north .the federal government was bound to help southerns retrieve escaped free slaves in the north.that was to much for the abolitionists