Talk:Slave states and free states

message: The District of Columbia also remained part of the Union. 
This is the sentence I describe as "funny". As the seat of the government of United States, the District of Columbia is placed directly under the authority of the Congress and couldn't secede from the Union. This sentence is unneccesary and I've remove it.  Joshua Chiew 15:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Funny" sentence at the end of 1st paragraph

message: According to the Delaware page, that state rejected the 13th Amendment on 18Feb1865, and did not abolish slavery during the Civil War.  The Thirteenth Amendment page also states that Delaware remained a slave state.  In contrast, the Emancipation Proclamation page states that only Kentucky still had slaves.  Can anyone definitively resolve whether Delaware abolished slavery before the enactment of the 13th Amendment? Bo Lawler 25Sep06 — Preceding undated comment added 14:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: no it did not. There were about 1000 slaves left when the 13 Amdt freed them in December 1865. (ref: Slavery in the South: A State-By-State History. by John O. Allen & Clayton E. Jewett 2004. Page : 48.) Rjensen 11:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delaware? 

message: I believe this should be clarified as having ended slavery only in the "rebel" states (aimed to disrupt their war-fighting capacity). Slavery was not ended nationally until the Constitution was amended after the War. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.186.161.244 (talk) 06:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation"

message: An editor has attempted to classify New Jersey as a slave state because a few individuals had  not been totally freed under the states's gradual emancipation statutes.  Of course, in the rancorous debates over slavery nobody at the time ever lumped New Jersey in with the slave states and no historian that I am aware of attempts to do so. The fact that NJ did have these few individuals is already included in the paragraph that the editor attempted to change. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the definition given in the article, "A slave state was a U.S. state in which slavery of African Americans was legal", I think it fits.  While New Jersey abolished the practice of "new" slavery in 1804, it allowed those owners still holding slaves to keep them. New Jersey's goal was to do away with slavery through attrition. These unfortunates were classified as apprentices for life.  This title may sugar coat the situation for some, but these apprentices were far from freedmen and were still slaves.  These "apprentices were not freed until the 13th Amendment rolled around, which New Jersey didn't ratify until January 23, 1866. Sf46 (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for providing what you "think".  The bottom line is what actual historians think and write -- you have any actual reliable sources that lump New Jersey in with Alabama et al?  Didn't think so. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since I guess this is still an issue, see here for an example (the first I could find on Google Books) of a historian labeling NJ as a "free state" even while acknowledging that slavery wasn't completely abolished there until 1866.  Wikipedia shouldn't use different terminology without support from reliable sources.Prezbo (talk) 21:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Defining slave states

message: Delaware was a slave state and existed since the beginning so why isn't it in the table of slave states in 1812? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.188.31.229 (talk) 01:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Incomplete Table?

message: Why is a slave-state only defined by the legality to keep African-American slaves? What about all the thousands of white slaves? 216.185.250.92 (talk) 04:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: African-American slaves?

message: Obviously the article discusses both.Prezbo (talk) 21:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Slave and free states" would be a better title 

message: Il etait transporté par colissimo d'afrique a l'europe  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.128.145.233 (talk) 13:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  slavery 

message: It lists Vermont being a free state in 1770, not 1777.  The main text of the article is correct. Contributor tom (talk) 21:26, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  First "slide" of interactive graphic has an error 

message: The animation ends in 1861. Shouldn't it continue to the end of slavery in the US, in particular showing the creation of West Virginia and its transition to a free state? --69.159.60.150 (talk) 07:15, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animation ends in 1861 

message: I changed "ended" to "completed" in "Gradual emancipation in New York (starting 1799, completed 1827) and New Jersey (starting 1804, completed by Thirteenth Amendment, 1865." I did so because to say that gradual emancipation ended could be misconstrued to mean that people remained enslaved. But another matter should be clarified. Was anyone in New Jersey still enslaved in 1865 before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment? I doubt it. I think that we're talking not about gradual emancipation starting and completing, but about the law requiring gradual emancipation starting and completing. Would someone edit this to clarify it?Maurice Magnus (talk) 18:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have any problem with "completed" (or "finished"), but there definitely were people still living as slaves in New Jersey in 1865. The 1860 census records 16 people as "slaves for life," but that is a significant underestimate. (The census did not compile any slave schedules for New Jersey, so the 16 are only those who were incorrectly recorded on the general census.) The real number was likely in the low thousands. The 1846 Act to Abolish Slavery only renamed the status of slave to "apprentice for life," with all the same constraints as slavery. See this Melissa F. Weiner paper, for instance. Flaggingwill (talk) 19:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. Thanks Maurice Magnus (talk) 19:22, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

text: Forever does not seem quite accurate. And it is still a fundamental difference between states. Gradual abolition generally had several parts, ending the importation of slaves, ending the slave trade, and over-time ending slavery gradually, and in key part ending the slavery of children or as they came of age.  Thus, it is a fundamentally different system than obtained in the other states.  Had all  the states below the line adopted such gradual plans, about 1800, American history would be very different. But they did not: below the line, they had in substance perpetual (or "forever") plans. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:59, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ended vs. Completed 

message: I removed the 1619 reference. Slavery already existed in the Colonies well beforehand. Link: https://www.history.com/news/american-slavery-before-jamestown-1619#:~:text=Prior%20to%201619%2C%20hundreds%20of,the%20systematic%20spread%20of%20colonization. 50.110.182.106 (talk) 02:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  1619 Reference Removed 

message: Very weird that the map key covers a large portion of the Western US? Abstractbread (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what map you are referring to but Utah Territory had slavery. Slavery was also legal in New France and New Spain. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:25, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is the map key covering Utah?