# Did more Northerners own slaves than Southerners before the Civil War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203 "2006-05-18T01:31:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/21 "2006-05-20T16:03:59Z")
> [@Kevlaur](#): > > Thanks for clearing up what I may, or may not, have read. Can I call you before I turn in my paper at school? We don’t do people’s homework for them on the Dope. Please keep this in mind for the future. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe its quite true that all Northern states abolish slavery, > Gen. Grant’s wife brought her slaves with her to visit him during the war! When we say that the states abolished slavery, we mean that the states made it illegal for their residents to own slaves. Since slavery was legal in the country on the national level slave owners could travel with slaves to any place in the country. If you are studying history, you should know that the issue of whether slaves became free when on or escaping into “free soil” was a major one before the war. Perhaps you’ve read of the Dred Scott decision. And we’ve already said plainly that the border states continued to have slavery until the 13th amendment was passed. Learning how to read closely will help you a lot in school. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/22 "2006-05-20T18:31:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t believe its quite true that all Northern states abolish slavery, > Gen. Grant’s wife brought her slaves with her to visit him during the war! It is quite true. Julia Dent Grant owned slaves through her father. She lived in Missouri, a slave territory, then a slave state. As the Dred Scott decision demonstated all too vividly, the removal of a slave to a free state did nothing to enable the slave to gain freedom. (This is why the destination of the Underground Railroad was Canada–a slave discovered in a Northern free state could be taken back to the South and reclaimed or re-sold.) As noted earlier, “Since slavery was also illegal in every Northern state, the only way for a person to own slaves in the North was to bring a personal servant from the South. (This happened, rather rarely, among some members of the Army.)” I am not sure whether Mrs. Grant left her slaves with her father while the family lived in Galena, IL, (while Grant was out of the Army) or whether they accompanied the family, but it would have been another case of the ownership of the slave originating in a slave state and simply being recognized (“full faith” clause of the Constitution) in the free state of Illinois. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/23 "2006-05-20T22:28:57Z")
> [@Kevlaur](#): > > I don’t believe its quite true that all Northern states abolish slavery, > Gen. Grant’s wife brought her slaves with her to visit him during the war! The Northern states most certainly abolished slavery, but no state could prevent its citizens from owning slave property in another state. The Grants are a perfect example of this. Julia Dent Grant grew up in Missouri, and owned slaves. When he lived with her in MIssouri, for a time Ulysses owned a slave as well. (He makes a surprising entry in the list of slave-owning presidents.) When Julia and Ulysses moved to Galena, they couldn’t take their slaves with them, because Illinois was a free state. (Illinois was one of the few states which still had a _personal sojourn_ law in the 1850’s, so they could have taken them _temporarily_ to Illinois, but they couldn’t have brought them there to _live_ without effecting their freedom.) Ulysses Grant, to his credit, set his slave free, but Julia hired hers out to others in Missouri and continued to own them, in a perfectly legal manner, as a citizen of Illinois. After Ulysses joined the Army, Julia returned to Missouri. She did in fact bring her enslaved maid with while visiting Ulysses, but by that time he was on Southern soil and “personal sojourn” wasn’t an issue. Also, the reason Dred Scott’s case landed in federal court was that his owner had moved to New York, while he remained in Missouri. This was another example of absentee ownership by a Northerner. **tomndebb** –No court ever found that “personal sojourn” was _required_ under the “full faith and credit” clause; as I say most Northern states in fact repealed such laws by the 1850’s. The problem in _Dred Scott_ was that Scott had returned to Missouri, and Missouri courts weren’t obligated to honor Illinois law respecting Scott’s status. (Even though Illinois _had_ a sojourn law, Scott probably could have won freedom had he sued in Illinois, on the ground that two years with his Army master in Illinois constituted residence. However, since he returned to Missouri before bringing suit, no Illinois court ever had to rule.) However, given this discussion of exceptions, I just want to reiterate: At every period in American history, the overwhelming majority of slave owners were Southerners. ---
**Author:** ![2MuchTrivia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e9bcb4/32.png) [@2MuchTrivia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2MuchTrivia)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/24 "2006-05-21T01:06:43Z")
[QUOTE] > [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > However, given this discussion of exceptions. An often forgotten aspect of the 13th amendment was that it did not abolish slavery in North America, as it took a separate treaty with the Indian Nations to end slave holding by U.S. Native Americans. I’m not trying to stir up a new mess of debate, just stating fact. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/25 "2006-05-21T07:27:34Z")
But think how much _longer_ there was slavery in some of the Northern states than in most of the Southern states. New York State is one of the worst examples. I believe they had slaves for over 200 years! Most of the Southern states had not been settled by even a hundred years. I think Tennessee had slaves for something like 65 years. If you are counting the number of slaves, those things need to be taken into consideration. In fact, New York State has been a slave state during its existence longer than it has been a free state! They should be catching up soon. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/26 "2006-05-21T07:37:31Z")
> [@](#): > > In fact, New York State has been a slave state during its existence longer than it has been a free state! Of course the same thing could be said of Virginia (or South Carolina, for that matter). This has less to do with those states’ moral worthiness or lack thereof, and more to do with that they have been around for a good bit longer than Mississippi or Minnesota. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/27 "2006-05-21T14:29:54Z")
> [@](#): > > But think how much longer there was slavery in some of the Northern states than in most of the Southern states. Of course, the number of slaves tended to be pretty small. After New Jersey outlawed the practice, a number of slaves who had already been purchased remained slaves all the way to the Civil War–and in 1860 there were all of 18 of them. New York’s number was in the neighborhood of a dozen. We are talking about trivia and historical artifacts rather than social movements at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/28 "2006-05-22T05:42:04Z")
[QUOTE=Hari Seldon] I just read a review of Davis’s book in which the reviewer, a historian, asserted that slavery was not abolished in the US until 1863 by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. **Wrong!** The EP didn’t free a single slave. It purported to emancipate slavery only in those areas not under US control where it could not possibly be enforced and didn’t do a thing in the areas under US control. [/QUOTE] As Union forces month by month captured and held Confederate territory, the slaves therein where freed by the Emancipation Proclamation: Texas (183,000), Florida (62,000), Mississippi (437,000), Alabama (435,000), Georgia (462,000), South Carolina (402,000), North Carolina (331,000), and parts of Virginia. Before the 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865, all four million slaves in the United States were free, the majority of them because of the Emancipation Proclamation.\* - Slaves were freed by the constitution of the newly admitted state of West Virginia (1863, for slaves over 21 years of age), and by constitutional amendments in Louisiana (1864), Maryland (1864), Missouri (1865), and Tennessee (1865). Slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment in Kentucky, Delaware, and West Virginia (slaves under 21 years of age). ---
**Author:** ![barleysinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@barleysinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barleysinger)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/29 "2015-07-21T22:23:05Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > it would have been physically impossible for more Northerners than Southerners to own slaves on a _per capita_ basis in 1860.\* Since slavery was also illegal in every Northern state Wrong. There were slaves up north too. You are missing a few things. For starters any slave that was ALREADY PURCHASED and was up north was still property. Automatic freedom did not apply up north. There were also slaves in states where slavery was supposed to be illegal. There were slaves listed in the federal censuses of states where slavery had been abolished. Emancipation (via the 13th amendment or the emancipation proclamation) was not always followed. Legally speaking, between 1962 and 1865, all the northern states except for Delaware had already begun their own emancipation laws…officially. First look at the map on wikipedia : > **[Slave states and free states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_and_free_states)** > > In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were prohibited. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states to be politically imperative that the number of free states not exceed the number of slave states, so new states were admitted in slave–free pairs. There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave... It is also VERY important to note that a lot of “free states” still had slavery. Nobody enforced the laws. Here are northern states, when they CLAIMED to have ended slavery and when they really did (mostly) State ----- Official End of Slavery ----- Actual End Of Slavery Mass. 1783 1783 N.H. 1783 1845 N.Y. 1789 1827 Conn. 1784 1848 R.I. 1784 1842 Pa. 1780 1845 N.J. 1804 1865 Vt. 1777 1777 There is evidence of “oddities” after this as well. Slaves were only know to exist in a state (officially) as long as state and federal censuses continued to count them. If you don’t count them… they must not exist? (or how to erase a problem form your sight) For instance, slaves were openly listed in the state census of many free states long after slavery was declared illegal in those states. For example, the Connecticut federal census listed slaves until _1850_ even though slaves were “all free” (officially) in 1848. As a state Connecticut passed a law to “gradually stop the practice” of slavery in 1784 (66 years earlier). However there is no proof that slavery in Connecticut ended in 1860, because people had simply stopped counting slaves in all of New England. There are books on this topic that go into the OPEN continuation of slavery in the US, for many decades after they were all supposedly freed. I suggest this one : Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. Author: Douglas A. Blackmon Publisher: Doubleday . ------- quote from the book ---------------------- The Age of Neo-Slavery In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—when a cynical new form of slavery was resurrected from the ashes of the Civil War and re-imposed on hundreds of thousands of African-Americans until the dawn of World War II. Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel Corp.—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of “free” black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery. - See more at: [The Book - Slavery By Another Name Slavery By Another Name](http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/the-book/#sthash.AhM92rwF.dpuf) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/30 "2015-07-24T16:23:34Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > I think the OP is trying to say that a greater proportion of the Northern population were slave owners than of the Southern population. IOW large numbers of Northerners had one or a small number of slaves as personal servants, whereas the relavitely few of the Southerners who were plantation owners owned most of the slaves in the South. > > Quite why this matters I have no idea. It is an extraordinary fact and anyone who talks or thinks about the demographics of slavery is the poorer for being unaware of it. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/31 "2015-07-24T18:21:43Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Since there were more Northerners than Southerners and there were more slaves in the South, it would have been physically impossible for more Northerners than Southerners to own slaves on a _per capita_ basis in 1860.\* You’re confusing “slaves per capita” with “slave owners per capita”. Both are meaningful statistics; the OP is concerned with the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/32 "2015-07-24T18:28:02Z")
> [@Kevlaur](#): > > Wow, great info. > I guess I meant to ask: > Did more Northerners than Southerners own slaves? > My ‘per capita’ was in error. It may not have been what you meant to ask, but it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/33 "2015-07-24T18:33:35Z")
**Moderator Note** This is a zombie thread dating back to 2006. Some of the folks that participated in the thread back then may no longer be around to see or comment on any current responses. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/34 "2015-07-24T22:01:11Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > > [@Askance](#): > > > > I think the OP is trying to say that a greater proportion of the Northern population were slave owners than of the Southern population. IOW large numbers of Northerners had one or a small number of slaves as personal servants, whereas the relavitely few of the Southerners who were plantation owners owned most of the slaves in the South. > > > > Quite why this matters I have no idea. > > It is an extraordinary fact and anyone who talks or thinks about the demographics of slavery is the poorer for being unaware of it. Well, it might be extraordinary if it were actually a fact, but as far as I can tell it isn’t. Using data from the [University of Virginia Historical Census Browser](http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/), and looking at the 1790 Census (when the process of Northern abolition had only just gotten going and the thesis therefore has the best chance of being correct): The indisputably Southern states of North and South Carolina had a total population of 644,078 people, and 135,218 of those people were members of white slaveholding familes (just under 21% of the population). In the Northern states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, there were 1,222,518 people, of whom 73,959 were members of white slaveholding families (a little over 6%). By both absolute numbers and per capita, there were more slaveholders in the South than in the North. If you insist on counting Maryland as a “Northern” state–[which nobody in the antebellum era would have, but what the hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason%E2%80%93Dixon_line)–then the “North” now has 1,542,246 people, of whom 145,127 were members of white slaveholding families, or 9.41% per capita white slaveholders. Now the absolute number of slaveholders in the “North” is higher, but the per capita of slaveholders in the “North” is still drastically lower than in the Carolinas. (Those are all using _total_ population, which includes slaves, and of course slaves didn’t own other slaves. The North had a free population of 1,193,855, of which members of white slaveholding families made up 6.19%, the South had a free population of 436,201, of which members of white slaveholding familes made up 31%. If you ahistorically insist on counting Maryland as a Northern state, the “North” now has a free population of 1,410,547 people of whom 10.29% were members of white slaveholding families.) But wait! Even for 1790 you’ll note I’m leaving out several states. That’s because there are major gaps in the data: no information is available on members of slaveholding families in half the states and territories at the time. (I dunno, maybe rodents got at some of the old census records or something). So, I’m leaving out New Jersey, an indisputably Northern state which was slow to abolish slavery and still had slavery well into the 19th century. But I’m also leaving out _Virginia_ (and Georgia), neither of which has data available on total members of white slaveholding families. Virginia was _easily_ the most populous state at the time; and since in 1790 almost 40% of the population of Virginia were slaves, I’m going to go out on a limb and say there were probably a hell of a lot of members of white slaveholding families in Virginia. Also, Massachusetts is another state with “N/A” data on members of white slaveholding families; but in fact by 1790 slavery had already been abolished in Massachusetts by “activist judges” and the 1790 census thus shows a slave population in Massachusetts of zero. Massachusetts had a total population of 378,556 (and also a free population of 378,556, natch), which puts the per capita numbers of members of white slaveholding families in the North at under 5%. So, the South therefore clearly had more slaveholders than the North in absolute numbers _and_ per capita. Pretty much any way you cook the data, slavery was concentrated in the South–and that only became more and more true as the process of Northern abolition continued into the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![barleysinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@barleysinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barleysinger)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/35 "2015-07-26T18:38:23Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Actually, there is one way it could happen, but I doubt it did: absentee slaveowners. That is, the slaves lived in the south, but their owners lived in the north. But for this to have happened, you’d have to have most of the plantations be owned by, say, a limited liability corporation based in the north, and then counting each of the shareholders as a slaveowner. Or something similar. It was less uncommon than you might think. General Grant (who eventually became president) married a woman from Missouri (a slave state) and she not only owned property back there and slaves … she had a slave as her personal maid, attending her when she was with Grant in the north. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/36 "2015-07-26T19:20:42Z")
I realize this is a zombie thread but to respond to an earlier post: > [@dtilque](#): > > Actually, there is one way it could happen, but I doubt it did: absentee slaveowners. That is, the slaves lived in the south, but their owners lived in the north. But for this to have happened, you’d have to have most of the plantations be owned by, say, a limited liability corporation based in the north, and then counting each of the shareholders as a slaveowner. Or something similar. That really wasn’t a possibility in the period when slavery was legal. Corporations like you’re describing didn’t exist in that period. Modern interstate corporations were a late 19th-century development. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/37 "2015-07-26T19:29:10Z")
Again, I know I’m responding to an old post. > [@Zoe](#): > > But think how much _longer_ there was slavery in some of the Northern states than in most of the Southern states. New York State is one of the worst examples. I believe they had slaves for over 200 years! Most of the Southern states had not been settled by even a hundred years. I think Tennessee had slaves for something like 65 years. If you are counting the number of slaves, those things need to be taken into consideration. > > In fact, New York State has been a slave state during its existence longer than it has been a free state! They should be catching up soon. New York came into existence as a state in 1776. Prior to that it was a British colony. New York enacted an abolition bill in 1799 which ended the growth of slavery; from that point on nobody became a slave although the law did continue the enslavement of people who were already slaves. These remaining slaves were freed by an emancipation law in 1827. So New York state had slavery for a total period of fifty-one years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203.md?page=1)