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

With the West, South and Border States almost solidly for him, he apparently needed only a brace of Eastern States to coast home.

From Time Magazine Archive

He owed his victory to Illinois, most of the smaller states in the West and Middle West, and particularly to the South and the Border States.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Solid South plus New York plus all the Border States would be 223 votes.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Old Confederacy and the Border States nominated the Republican ticket, and will shape its campaign.

From Time Magazine Archive

V. In order to do justice to all parties in this controversy we should take especial notice of the amount of opposition to slavery about 1825 in what were afterwards called the Border States.

From Liberty In The Nineteenth Century by Holland, Frederic May