re is painted of old New Jersey, where forests of pine, cedar and oak thrived.Flemming’s major misconception, though, is his claim that the Civil War revealed New Jersey’s tendency to lean towards being a border state, “in heart and mind, in politics and economics…separated only by and accident of geography from the rebellious South.”20 He supports this reasoning with facts about geography and the economy, but one cannot rely on these facts to see the New Jersey’s true outlook on slavery. It is easy to see, though, why he, as well as many other historians, would follow this assumption. In Jersey Blue, William Gillette points out this rationalization as well as its pitfalls. New Jerseyans, like the southerners, held a firm belief in state rights as well as the right of secession. The extreme southern part of this state was also well below the Mason-Dixon line, and it was also the last state north of this line to abolish slaver in the antebellum years. New Jersey factories also manufactured many products for southern trade, one of the few facts that Flemming uses to support his view. The fact, though, is that even though these statements hold some truth, they are presented one-sided. Not only is the claim that New Jersey was the only northern state that somewhat relied on the South for economic stability false, much of their improvement and prosperity was actually primarily due to their location between New York and Philadelphia. Furthermore, once cannot prove that trade patterns establish political positions.21There are five main reasons, though, as to why New Jersey did not join the abolitionist movement. Jerseyans preferred “caution, not heedless, dangerous radicalism, unilateral idealism that nullified an obnoxious federal law at will,” and the majority of their religious denominations also did not tend to back abolitionism. The state also did not have a substantial northern t...
