According to this site New Jersey reduced the number of slaves from 12,000 in 1800 to just 18 in 1860, while the number of freed-blacks rose from 4,000 to 25,000.
So by 1860 New Jersey had over 1,000 freed for every slave African American.
In South Carolina, by contrast, the number of slaves rose from 150,000 in 1800 to 400,000 in 1860, while the number of freed-blacks rose from 3,000 to just 10,000.
So South Carolina's ration of slaves to freed-blacks remained about 40 to one.
In view of the facts, your concern for New Jerseyans' "hypocrisy" is misplaced.
In view of the facts, your concern for New Jerseyans' "hypocrisy" is misplaced.
It is just this sort of failure to understand the point that makes it futile to attempt a discussion with you on this topic.
When you are talking about moral absolutes, 18 slaves in New Jersey is hypocrisy, while 400,000 slaves in South Carolina isn't.
You can get away with any abomination so long as you don't claim to be more moral than anyone else.
Of course it's BS. Today's liberals do claim to be more moral than other people when it comes to the things they really care about.
Slave owners 150 years ago certainly did claim to be more moral than the Northerners they attacked as godless.
It's comical to imagine that secessionist fire eaters were cowering in guilt over slavery and not ferociously and militantly self-righteous.
The way people get away with hypocrisy -- then or now -- is to finding somebody else to pin the label on.
So you'll hear a lot about Northern hypocrisy from people who excuse everything going on in the slave states.