Certainly slavery was an issue leading up to the WBTS. But, so many try to say it was the issue about which the whole war was fought. That is a ludicrous position that cannot be defended with either logic or facts.
Can you imagine the North going to war with the South to defend an indefensible position? According to the 1860 Census, just months before the Late Unpleasantness began, the sates that would become the Union (in the north) owned over 432,000 living and breathing slaves:
Now according to the 1860 census these were the following number of slaves in the four exsisting future border states (like I said, West Virginia wasn't a state yet and hadn't left the rest of Virginia in 1860) and DC as gathered from Shotgun's Home of the American Civil War's page on the census:
"Delaware 1,798
Dist. Columbia 3,185
Kentucky 225,483
Maryland 87,189
Missouri 114,931"
That comes out to 432,586 slaves in this part of the country in 1860. This seems to be confirmed by a chart on the 1860 census on the America's Civil War website which givesthe slave population in this area, minus DC, as follows :
"DELAWARE 1,798 (1.6%)
KENTUCKY 225,483 (19.5%)
MARYLAND 87,189 (12.7%)
MISSOURI 114,931 (9.7%)
TOTAL 429,401 (13.7%)"
Add to the first number, Kansas with 2 in 1860, Nebraska with 15 in 1860, and Utah with 29 in 1860. That raises the total to 432,632 slaves in the future Union states as of 1860.
SRH
Last edited by Stan; 10/23/17 01:21 PM.
