[Rudey]

The economic reasons thing is wrong.

-Rudey

Originally posted by IvySpice
Clarification of history:

1. In 1776, slavery was legal in all 13 of the original colonies. There weren't a ton of slaves in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, but there were some.

2. Many Northern states began outlawing slavery, primarily for economic reasons but to some degree because of abolitionist sentiment, long before the civil war.

3. By the time the Civil War began, slavery had been outlawed in all the Northern states, but was still very prominent in the Southern and border states.

4. preciousjeni may be referring to states like Kentucky that were slave states, but not in rebellion at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation; slaves in these states were not officially freed until passage of the 13th Amendment after the war ended. There were no slaves on the eastern seaboard north of Maryland at the time of the war, however (at least not legally).

So there is a history of slavery throughout the eastern half of this country, including in the north, but in some areas, like New England, that history is much shorter and ended longer ago than it did in the south. Parts of the Midwest and Northwest, in contrast, forbade slavery from the time of their initial settlement by "Americans."