Building through the Sierra Nevada Mountains was very difficult and dangerous. Temperatures were freezing during the winter and in one year alone there were 44 storms.There was the great danger of an avalanche for the men working through 18 feet of snow and camping on the tunnels beneath it. Creating tunnels through the mountains required blasting with nitroglycerin. Advancing at one foot of mountain at a time, a total of 11 tunnels was created.
The origins of these acts go back to the constitution where the article 4 has a clause called the fugitive slave clause which orders states to deliver up fugitives from labor (euphemism for runaway slaves) when they are requested by slaveholders.
This clause was translated into the first 1793 statute which was basically a civil statute that was not well enforced according to the southern states, thus leading to the creation of the 1850 fugitive slave act.
The 1850 act was tougher than the previous one, punishing not only runaway slaves, but also people who harbored or aided slaves in any way, with civil and criminal penalties including up to 6 months imprisonment if caught and prosecuted successfully.
There were many documented cases of people being tortured and imprisoned in south because of helping fugitives.
These acts directly violated the democracy in several ways for example:
- Slavery had been abolished in many states of the US by the time these acts were created
- They were considered by many as some species of legalized kidnapping
- They encouraged illegal abduction or arrest and sale into slavery of free black men and women denying them the fair right to trial
One clear example would be the movie "Twelve years a slave" which depicts the documented case of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was sold as a slave without proof of him being one.
Randall Collins recommend to reform the American educational
system ts that they should have it to be considered as illegal in terms with how the the employers are likely to
engage of having to ask the individuals in regards with their educational
credentials by which it is not even necessary.
1st goal was to spread communism to Western Europe and the 2nd goal was to ensure security of the Soviet Union