The recently enacted federal Fugitive Slave Law was met with universal opposition by the delegates of the 1851 convention. The highlight of the remarks on the law included an impassioned speech by John Mercer Langston, followed by multiple resolutions calling for the law's destruction. 

It is worth noting that despite unanimous opposition to the law, however, delegates did utilize the law as evidence for opposing arguments at other times throughout the convention. This will be explored in greater detail in the following sections. 

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention!--No enactment ever given birth to by the American Congress has created so much dissatisfaction and excitement, as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This is not to be wondered at when we remember that mankind are not entirely divested of their humanity, and that this enactment possesses neither the form nor the essence of true law, that it is a hideous deformity in the garb of law. Blackstone has justly recorded that real law commands what is right, and prohibits what is wrong. This enactment--unworthy the name of law--reverses this definition, by prohibiting what is right, and commanding what is wrong. Such is the outrage of this abomination of all abominations, upon the just and universally admitted principles of the common law. But it does not stop here. By it all the great bulwarks of Liberty are stricken down. It kills alike, the true spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the palladium of our liberties. It is unconstitutional for the following considerations:--It strips man of his manhood and liberty upon an ex parte trial; sets aside the constitutional guarantee of the writ of Habeas Corpus, which, under the constitution, can never be suspended, except in cases of rebellion or invasion; declares that the decision of the commissioner, the lowest judicial officer know to the law, upon the matter of personal liberty--the gravest subject that can be submitted to any tribunal, shall be final and conclusive; holds out a bribe in the shape of double fees, for a decree contrary to liberty and in favor of Human Slavery; forbids any enquiry into the facts of the case by confining it to the question of personal identity. Thus the law strikes down all the shields of liberty, by aiming to make a local crime a national sin."

Resolved, that we look upon the recent Fugitive Slave enactment as a hideous deformity in the garb of law--unconstitutional--opposed to the Institutions of the Free States--an outrage upon humanity--at war with the teachings of Christianity, and its place is first upon the catalogue of disgraceful, and abominable legislations that characterized the tyranny of Charles I., and we would urge upon the people of necessity of its immediate and unconditional repeal.

One question stood far above all others in terms of producing highly contentious debate at the 1851 convention: was it acceptable to associate in any way with an entity that was not "purely anti-slavery?" The corresponding resolution was taken to the floor, debated, amended, amended again, debated again, and eventually adopted. Black Ohioans possessed strikingly different views that reached to the very core of how their movement for civil rights should proceed. Despite the sharp disagreements, the delegates ultimately shed their self-interests for the interests of the whole convention. 

Resolved, That we will neither support, countenance or associate with any person, society or church, unless we are convinced that they are purely Anti-Slavery.

After delivering their blistering speeches about the Douglass amendment, Douglass and Day took a moment to collect themselves as C.H. Langston entered the discussion. Hoping to bridge the divide, Langston conceded points to both gentlemen. He agreed with Douglass that the Constitution was a proslavery document, but he also thought it would be foolish to ignore any tool that could be used to help Black Americans. He argued that: "But whether the Constitution is pro-slavery, and whether colored men 'can consistently vote under that Constitution,' are two very distinct questions; and while I would answer the former in the affirmative, I would not, like the gentleman from Cuyahoga, answer the latter in the negative."  The amendment was soundly defeated after Langston's speech, but the original resolution passed. Yet again, the self-interests of certain members yielded to the group as a whole.