[hanamizu]

Union slave states like Missouri legally held them.

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I believe that Missouri actually abolished slavery a few months before the 13th kicked in, but I could be wrong. People forget, or never learned, that the Emancipation Proclamation only affected slaves in states declared in rebellion on January 1, 1863. Slaves in Union states and Confederate states under Union control were not affected. The E.C. is quite specific about this.

[stremba]

There were abolition laws in some of the border states. I’m not sure if Missouri passed one prior to the ratification of The 13th Amendment or not. Many of those laws called for gradual, rather than immediate, emancipation though, so it’s still possible that there were slaves held legally even if an abolition law had been passed.