Storr
Junior Chimp
Posts: 7,420
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« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2021, 08:48:55 PM » |
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Baltimore was highly industrialized and the western part of the state was too mountainous for slavery to work. (With some quick research I figured out Baltimore City + County was 38.8% of the Maryland's population in the 1860 census. That kind of urban population concentration didn't exist in any of the states that seceded. New Orleans, the largest Southern city until the 1930s, was only 24.6% of Louisiana's population in 1860.) So I'm not sure the whole state would have succeeded, but certain parts may have. The Eastern Shore and "Southern Maryland" (areas on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay south of Washington DC) come to mind because those were the areas in the state that relied on the slave economy. It's notable that in the state's Constitutional referendum on ending slavery on November 1, 1864 (which is quite late in the war anyway) was passed only 30,174 to 29,799 with the deciding margin supposedly coming from Union soldiers stationed outside of the state. I have a teensy feeling it may not have passed in an unoccupied Maryland.
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