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There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, provided that a slave did not become free by entering a free state and must be returned to their owner. Enforcement of these ...
These were "slaveholding" states, all south of the Mason–Dixon line. The border south states had less than 2% to more than 19% of their 1860 population held as slaves, with an average of 13%; middle south states ranged from 25 to 33% slaves, with an average of 29%. (Deep South 43–57%, except Texas, with 30%.) [13]
By 1860, more than half of the African Americans in Delaware were free, as were a high proportion in Maryland. [13] According to the 1860 United States census, slaves comprised less than a fifth of the population in all five border states, specifically Kentucky (19.5%), Maryland (12.7%), Missouri (9.7%), West Virginia (4.9%), and Delaware (1.6%).
By 1860, the slave population in the United States had reached four million. [172] Of the 1,515,605 free families in the fifteen slave states in 1860, nearly 400,000 held slaves (roughly one in four, or 25%), [173] amounting to 8% of all American families. [174] Ashley's Sack is a cloth that recounts a slave sale separating a mother and her ...
According to the 1860 United States census, about 31% of free households in the eleven states that would join the Confederacy owned slaves. The 11 states that seceded had the highest percentage of slaves as a proportion of their population, representing 39% of their total population.
In Mississippi, a free Negro could be sold into slavery after spending ten days in state. Arkansas passed a law in 1859 that would have enslaved every free black person still present by 1860; although it was not enforced, it succeeded in reducing Arkansas's population of free blacks to below that of any other slave state. [19]
Jean Pfaelzer discusses recasting history in 'California, a Slave State,' which tracks the record of racism and forced labor that drove the state's 'startup' culture.
Douglas was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states. In the South, Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11. Lincoln's election motivated seven Southern states, all having voted for Breckinridge, to secede before the inauguration in March.