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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

See Examples For:

slave state Slave State

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

Alabama becomes the twenty-second state, a slave state.

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

He resolved to hire a farm in Maryland, near to the great armoury at Harper's Ferry in the Slave State of Virginia, and there diligently and silently to store arms.

From Old John Brown, the man whose soul is marching on by Walter Hawkins

I was born and reared in Slavery; and I remained in a Slave State twenty-seven years.

From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself by Harriet Ann Jacobs

The announcement that she was going to risk her liberty in a Slave State was unwelcome news to William.

From Clotel; or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown

Free laborers will not go there, although few slaves are there to be found; for they well know that there is no respect or standing for the free laborer in any Slave State.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 by Various

Paschall is a base submissionist, and desires to remain with the North, if every Slave State should go out.

From The Struggle for Missouri by John McElroy