Answer: C. were enslaved in the South.
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress on September 18, 1850. It represented a compromise between Southern states that owned slaves and Northern ones which desired freedom. It was an important precedent to the Civil War.
The act was extremely controversial, as it stated that all escaped slaves, if captured, had to be returned to their masters. It also forced the officials and citizens of free states to cooperate. This lead to many free African Americans becoming slaves in the South.
