Border States

American  

plural noun

1. U.S. History. the Slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, which refused to secede from the Union in 1860–61.

2. the U.S. states touching the Canadian border.

3. certain countries of central and northern Europe that border on the former Soviet Union and belonged to the Russian Empire: Finland, Poland (prior to 1940), Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

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Example Sentences

They are the cornerstone, the bulwark, among which "bolts" and "splits" and outright transitions occur far less frequently than among the eleven Western States, the eleven Eastern States, the four Border States.

From Time Magazine Archive

For 25 years before the Civil War no one knew which way the Border States would go if war came.

From Time Magazine Archive

Border States None of the states have carried integration quite so far as the District of Columbia, but the six Border States, on the whole, have made heartening progress.

From Time Magazine Archive

Senator from Kentucky, as the vice-presidential prospect most likely to help the ticket in the Border States and the South.

From Time Magazine Archive

At the conclusion of this spirited National Anthem, the Border States chaps who have been singing it are invited to have another interview with the President, who has only seen them twice the same morning.

From The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. Series 2 by Newell, R. H. (Robert Henry)