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A slave state is a U.S. State that had legal slavery of African-Americans. Slavery was one of the causes of the American Civil War and was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Thirteenth Amendment of 1865. The 15 slave states at the time of the Civil War were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia (including West Virginia). (The District of Columbia also had slavery prior to the Civil War.) The last northern state to abolish slavery was New Jersey in 1804, although the laws of that state retained slaves over a certain age as "apprentices for life" until the 13th Amendment. All but five of these states seceded in 1860 and 1861 to form the Confederate States of America; Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri did not leave the Union (see border states). West Virginia joined the Union as a slave state in 1863 after seceding from Virginia. Original status Prior to the American Revolution, all of the British North American colonies had slavery, but the Revolutionary War gave impetus to a general antislavery sentiment. The Northwest Territory, now known as the Midwest, was organized under the Northwest Ordinance with a prohibition on slavery in 1787. Massachusetts accepted that its 1780 Constitution effectively abolished slavery, and several other northern statutes requiring gradual emancipation. In 1804, New Jersey became the last state to embark on the course of gradual emancipation, a process which had still not quite entirely eliminated slavery as late as 1860. Northern slave states Conflict over new territories During the War of 1812, British officers promised emancipation to slaves that would support their side. By the end of the War of 1812, the momentum for antislavery reform, state by state, appeared to run out of steam, with half of the States having already abolished slavery (Northeast), prohibited from the start (Midwest) or committed to eliminating slavery (New Jersey, etc), and half committed to continuing the institution indefinitely (South). The potential for political conflict over slavery at a federal level led politicians to be concerned about the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, where each State was represented by two Senators. With an equal number of slave States and free States, the Senate was equally divided. As the population of the free States began to outstrip the population of the slave States, leading to control of the House of Representatives by free states, the Senate became the preoccupation of Slave state politicians, interested in maintaining a Congressional veto over federal policy in regard to slavery. As a result of this preoccupation, slave states and free states were often admitted into the Union in pairs, so as to maintain the existing Senate balance between slave and free. The admission of Missouri and the Missouri Compromise Controversy over whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave State, resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which specified that Louisiana Purchase territory north of latitude 36° 30', which described Missouri's southern boundary, would be organized as free States and territory south of that line would be reserved for organization as Slave states. As part of that Compromise, the admission of Maine as a free state was secured to balance Missouri's admission as a slave State. Status of Texas and the Mexican Cession states The admission of Texas as a slave state in 1845 was controversial. Even more so was the acquisition of vast new western territories in the Mexican-American War in 1848. The proposed Wilmot Proviso would have outlawed slavery in the new territories (but allowed it in Texas). The Proviso was never passed by Congress. The territory acquired in the Mountain West did not seem hospitable to cotton or slavery. In 1850, California was admitted as a free State, without an additional slave state as balance. (See Compromise of 1850). The last battles The difficulty of identifying any territory which could be organized into additional slave states stalled the process of opening the western territories to settlement, while slave state politicians sought a solution. Efforts were made to acquire Cuba, where slavery existed under Spanish rule. That effort failed (see Ostend Manifesto). In 1854, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and an effort was initiated to organize Kansas, as a Slave state. Kansas was paired with Minnesota, for admission, but the admission of Kansas as slave state was blocked due to questions over the legitimacy of its slave state constitution. When the admission of Minnesota proceeded unimpeded in 1858, the balance in the Senate was lost, a loss to the slave states compounded by the subsequent admission of Oregon in 1859. Slave and free state pairs Before 1812, the concern about balancing slave-states and free states was not profound. This is how the states lined up in 1812: Following 1812, and until the American Civil War, maintaining the balance of free and slave states within the federal legislature was considered of paramount importance if the Union was to be preserved, and for all intents and purpose states were admitted in pairs: The end of slave states Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia and Delaware abolished slavery during the Civil War. Kentucky did not; slavery was ended there, in December 1865, by the Thirteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified December 6, 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, ending the distinction between slave and free states. Ratification of the 13th Amendment was a condition of the return of local rule to those states that had seceded. See also | |||||||
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