Why did slavery decline in the North?

MattL

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Aug 20, 2015
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SF Bay Area
This is something I've been interested in for a while. I welcome both links to books or articles that cover this topic as well as open discussion.

The question is Why did slavery decline in the North?

The further context is that I know the common explanation is that agriculture being more prominent in the South (at a larger scale) combined with the cotton gin resulted in the growth of Slavery in the South. So my curiosity centers around the fact that industry was growing in the North at this time, why didn't those industry related jobs result in a surge of slaves in the North. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but it seems like industrial related jobs like that would be a perfect venue for purchasing slaves. Why didn't the industrial revolution result in a cotton gin like surge of slavery in the North?

The only thing that comes to mind is culture, that an anti-slavery culture was already developing strong enough that they didn't turn to that source of labor. Though I'm sure I'm missing many things.
 
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