Pro-slavery states in 19th century?

In the early 19th century, nearly all of the United States was or had recently been pro-slavery. At the founding of the country, human slavery was a widely accepted part of society, largely because it was accepted in the European countries where the first settlers came from, especially England and Holland. The 19th century was pivotal for the United States, however, as it was during this span of years that the American Civil War broke out. Among other things, this war concerned the legality and morality of slavery and sharply divided the nation into states that were either for or against the practice. During that era, the United States consisted of fewer states than it does today, but northern states were generally viewed as opposed to slavery while southern states generally accepted the practice. By the end of the war, the entire nation was technically against slavery, and human slavery became illegal everywhere.

Civil War Basics

In the early 19th century, there were more pro-slavery states in relation to the total number of states. As that century progressed, more states went anti-slavery, but more states were also admitted to the Union. Slavery was a major issue at the heart of the American Civil War, fought between 1918 and 1861. Most scholars agree that the underlying issue was whether or not slavery could be brought into the western territories, which were not still been at that point. The real root of the conflict, however, was the larger and all-encompassing question of the power of states, and the extent to which states were and should be able to set their own policies, slavery included.

When war broke out, most of the states in the Far North did not practice slavery, although most of the South tolerated and sometimes condoned it. When northern states tried to force southern states to change their laws, many states threatened to secede from the union — and most eventually did. They formed what they considered their new country called the Confederate States of America. This entity lost the war against the remaining United States and was reincorporated at the end of the war. As such, in 1865, the entire country was anti-slavery and a constitutional amendment was written to ensure it remained so.

Southern pro-slavery

Starting in Maryland and Delaware and heading south, most of the states on the southern coast of the United States were considered “pro-slavery.” This covered Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas. Richmond, a city in Virginia, became the capital of the Confederacy, and Kentucky, where President Abraham Lincoln was born, also joined the Confederate ranks. Missouri allowed slavery, and the practice was also tolerated in some spots and places in the newly expanded west. Most of what was known as the “Indian Territories” and the “New Mexico Territory” allowed slavery in most areas.

Anti-slavery North
By the start of the Civil War, all of the New England states—which included Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut—had been antislavery states, as had New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. On the West Coast, California and Oregon were anti-slavery, as were some of the territories in between. Policies were more difficult to define in the territories, as these places lacked coherent state government and were largely governed by the beliefs and ideologies of the landowners who were settling the regions.

At the end of the war
After the Civil War ended in a Union victory, a constitutional amendment was written to abolish slavery throughout the United States. All states were thus considered anti-slavery, regardless of which side those states chose during the war. This was in 1865, several months after President Lincoln was assassinated.

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