“Price found refuge in Oberlin until he was arrested on September 13, 1858, by a federal marshal authorized by the 1850 Act to capture Price and return him to slavery.”
“several of the men swept into the room where Price was being held, helping him escape and return to Oberlin. Once in Oberlin, those involved in his rescue acted quickly to secure Price’s escape to Canada, where he successfully found freedom.”
“Of the people involved with Price’s escape, 37 were indicted by a federal grand jury for having violated the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Authorities in Ohio, sympathetic to the rescuers and opposed to many provisions of the Act, reacted by arresting the federal marshal and other officers who captured Price, charging them with kidnapping. By April of 1859, federal and state authorities negotiated the release of both parties, with only two antislavery men being convicted and the remaining 35 released without charges. In return, Ohio authorities dropped the charges of kidnapping.”
Sounds like hostage taking, selective enforcement of the law, lawfare, antifa, and all the same sort of crap liberals are doing today.
The Feds should have came in and stomped everyone trying to interfere with the legal agents tasked with the enforcement of the law.
If refusing to follow the law is a valid choice, you have no argument to make when the Confederates chose to decide what the law was themselves.
As Grant said, the quickest way to repeal a bad law is by it's strict enforcement. It is not up to individuals to decide what laws they don't have to obey.