Good morning to you, wasp69, it is a pleasure to hear from you again. I am looking forward to the holiday season with my family and I hope that you and yours have a safe and happy and blessed holiday season as well.
Your story does nothing to disprove my statements. I never suggested that there were no free black men and women down south. In fact at the time of the Civil war there were, I belive, about 133,000 free blacks living in what would become the confederate states, about 28% of all free blacks in the country. And I'm aware that some free blacks owned slaves themselves. But I'll stand by the accuracy of my statement. The fact remains that every southern state had laws on their books or clauses in their constitutions which prohibited a free black person from emigrating into their state. Every southern state had laws which limited the freedoms of free blacks to one extent or another.
Maybe I misunderstood your post. Forgive me. Everything aside, black laws in both the North and South, I honestly believed this could have been headed off if only Washington and the Continental Congress would have offered full rights and freedom to those Blacks that fought for Independence. I have always believed that peer pressure from Free Black families living alongside their White and Black counterparts would have ended slavery long before legislation ever could. Not so much in words or protest but in having to live next to what could possibly be a relative of their property. Then again, it could have gone the other way.