The free and slave states as of 1861, with free states in blue and slave states in red.
The 'free states' of the
United States existed in opposition to the
slave states prior to the
American Civil War. The term "free state" described a
state in the
antebellum United States in which
slavery was either prohibited or eliminated over time.
Background
The
Northeastern and
Mid-Atlantic States, including
Massachusetts,
New York,
Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, had legally sanctioned slavery in the 17th, 18th and even part of the 19th centuries, but in the generation or two before the
American Civil War, almost all slaves had been emancipated through a series of statutes.
The first U.S. region entirely free of slavery was the
Midwest, which was ordained free under the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the
U.S. Constitution was ratified. The states created from this region—
Ohio,
Indiana,
Michigan,
Illinois,
Wisconsin and
Minnesota —were generally settled by
New Englanders and
American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there. Because this region was entirely slave free from its inception and separated by the
Ohio River from the
South—which was pushing an expansion of legal slavery into the
West—the concept of "free states" developed in contrast to "slave states." The rural Midwest, at one time in direct East-West rivalry with the Northeastern commercial states, realigned with the Northeastern states, newly free of slavery and together created the amalgamation of states prohibiting slavery, known in the context of the Civil War as the free states.
Anti-slavery settlers in "
Bleeding Kansas" in the 1850s were called ''
Free-Staters'', because they fought (successfully) to include Kansas in the Union as a free state.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the 19 free states were as follows:
Maine,
Vermont,
New Hampshire,
Massachusetts,
Rhode Island,
Connecticut,
New York,
New Jersey,
Pennsylvania,
Ohio,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Michigan,
Wisconsin,
Minnesota,
Kansas,
Iowa,
Oregon and
California. In New Jersey, there were still slaves at the time of the Civil War. New Jersey law called for the gradual emancipation of slaves, and by the time of the Civil War most but not all slaves in that state had been freed.
Original state-based abolition efforts
Prior to the
American Revolution, all of the
British North American colonies had slavery, but the Revolutionary War gave impetus to a general anti-slavery 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 states adopted statutes requiring gradual emancipation. In 1804, New Jersey became the last state to embark on the course of gradual emancipation.
| Significant dates | VT | PA | MA | NH | CT | RI | NY | NJ |
|---|
| European settlement | 1666 | 1638 | 1620 | 1623 | 1633 | 1636 | 1624 | 1620 |
| First record of slavery | c.1760? | 1639 | 1629? | 1645 | 1639 | 1652 | 1626 | 1626? |
| Official end of slavery | 1777 | 1780 | 1783 | 1783 | 1784 | 1784 | 1799 | 1804 |
| Actual end of slavery | 1777? | c.1845? | 1783 | c.1845? | 1848 | 1842 | 1827 | 1865 |
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, 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
United States 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
United States 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 to maintain the existing Senate balance between slave and free.
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 and the acquisition of vast new western territories after the
Mexican-American War further excited controversy. Although the settled portion of Texas was an area rich in cotton plantations and dependent on slavery, 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. This would have created a free state majority in the Senate, except that California agreeably sent one pro-slavery and one anti-slavery senator to
Washington, D.C. Thus, the admission of California increased the anxiety of pro-slavery politicians but did not change the balance in the Senate.
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 and to annex
Nicaragua—both to be slave states. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was repealed, 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 a slave state was blocked because of 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 that was 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 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 were typically admitted in pairs:
End of slave states
Maryland and the pro-Union government of Missouri abolished slavery during the Civil War.
The
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified
December 6,
1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, ending the distinction. Ratification of the 13th Amendment was a prerequisite for the return of local rule to those states that had seceded.
See also
★
Slave state
★
Border states (Civil War)
External links
★
Slavery in the North
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