The answer is C. Federal law requiring states to assist in the capture and return of slaves. The contentiousness of the fugitive slave act in the Compromise of 1850, was an attempt to prolong the inevitable war that was coming. Emerson's revulsion to the act was made in the context of the fact the men making these decisions were not illiterate savages, but learned men who could read and write and supposedly knew what is was to be human and should have abhorred (hated) anything to do with slavery.
