The individual characters are key to
understanding exactly why events unfolded as they did, from the captured fugitive
slave Anthony Burns (who knew far better than his abolitionist attorneys that it was
not in his interest to anger his master, and who almost paid with his life for their
failed attempt to free him) to the sympathetic Judge Hiram Willson (who reduced
the sentence of black rescuer Charles Langston after hearing his emotional appeal to
the God-given right not to be enslaved).