Yes, the Mason- Dixon Line is on the border with Pennsylvania. However, not only did Maryland not secede, but public sentiment was about evenly divided on the question, and though a slave state, the farms were mostly small, with few slaves. Maryland probably had the largest freeman population of any state, and the most blacks in the trades. That is a lot of the reason for Howard University being built in Washington DC, and for the NAACP being formed in Baltimore.
Additionally, due to the federal government, and even more than in Northern Virginia, people have been pulled from around the county to live, and often settle, in the Washington suburbs of Maryland. My paternal grandparents were from Philadelphia, and my maternal grandfather was from New York. (My maternal grandmother was a native of Washington DC).
All of this makes Maryland the Border State par excellence, and one's identification mostly a matter of family and choice. When I was a child, we used to play Civil War, and I would invariable choose to be Union. I feel funny going much south of Alexandria, and think of myself as being in the New York- Washington corridor....... |
