[Bubba Ho-Tep]

As opposed to Illinois, which banned blacks.

And yet the 1860 census counted 7628 of them living there, more than the free black populations of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia combined. Some southern states had laws that forced freed slaves to leave the state or be returned to slavery.

[antinomian]

And yet the 1860 census counted 7628 of them living there, more than the free black populations of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia combined. Some southern states had laws that forced freed slaves to leave the state or be returned to slavery.

Those laws were not enforced. They were enacted during the period when the northern states were trying to eliminate their own black populations through structures manumission laws.

And the free black numbers in the census are known to be bogus. Free black men listed their wives and children as slaves for legal reasons.