mysticonnie's blog

Monday, November 15, 2004

At 9:15 AM, Ryan said...: I took a class on California history. It is true the state constitution outlawed slavery and the state joined as a non-slave state (and thus is seemingly a pro-Kerry anti-slave state). We delved into the political deliberations and newspaper articles around this. It turned out the chief reason the state banned slavery was it did not want black people coming and living here. Also, there were political concerns at the time about balancing the slave states and non slave states admitted to the union, so being a slave state might have meant staying independent and having to contend with Mexico on our own.

Also, Ohio, the decisive state for Bush, was a free state, and red states Idaho and North Dakota were in free territories.

People might also want to check out the Clinton victory maps in 1992 and 1996:

http://www2.gwu.edu/~action/maps9296.html

Clinton, of course, being from a "slave state."