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• slave state
  slave state

  noun

  any state, nation, etc., where slavery is legal or officially condoned.
• Slave State
  Slave State

  noun

  history any of the 15 Southern states in which slavery was legal until the Civil War

slave state

American  

noun

1. any state, nation, etc., where slavery is legal or officially condoned.

2. U.S. History. Slave States, the states that permitted slavery between 1820 and 1860: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

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Slave State British  

noun

1. history any of the 15 Southern states in which slavery was legal until the Civil War

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Etymology

Origin of slave state

An Americanism dating back to 1800–10

Example Sentences

By 1854, Cuba was one of Spain’s few remaining New World colonies, and Southern expansionists coveted it—and its lucrative sugar plantations—as a new U.S. slave state.

From Barron's • Jan. 18, 2026

Robert Anderson, son of a Revolutionary War officer, a cousin of Chief Justice John Marshall, and a West Point graduate from the loyal slave state of Kentucky.

From Slate • Sep. 24, 2025

Many of the earliest separatists wanted to transform Southern California into a slave state.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2024

On May 19, 1856, Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a Republican who was passionately anti-slavery, rose to speak against Kansas joining the Union as a slave state.

From Salon • Sep. 21, 2023

Arkansas, a slave state, becomes the twenty-fifth state.

From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis