WI Delaware Abolishes Slavery in 1847

In 1847 a bill to abolish slavery for those born after 1850 was passed by Delaware's House of Representatives. It was defeated by one vote in the State Senate. What if the bill was passed and signed by the governor and Delaware became a free state? How does this affect the balance of power between slave and free states? Obviously this wouldn't have a huge affect on the House of Representatives, but this would mean that the slave states would have two less Senators. How would the other slave states react?
 
New Mexico may become a state sooner to balance.

Delaware was basically Pennsylvania Junior in culture though, so it is not some southern state like Virginia being won over: Delaware was so small and mellow and the slave population actually so low, I have a sneaking suspicion it just never got around to making a concentrated effort to abolish since (if I remember right) the slaves were concentrated in the southwest corner right by the Maryland border.
 
Considering that Delaware was one of the four Border States, its becoming a Free State a decade earlier may not have tipped the balance against the future Confederacy from forming. However; I'm not sure their Maryland neighbors would have just quietly accepted this change but may have even staged raids on Dover and Wilmington (as Missourians did re Laurence, Kansas) to intimidate to change their minds back. If Delaware DID become a Free State (and was able to keep that status) I wonder how many Maryland slaves would have tried to send their children there so THEY could be free if they appeared to have born after 1850? Lastly, how would Delaware have enforced the Fugitive Slave Act ?
 
In 1847 a bill to abolish slavery for those born after 1850 was passed by Delaware's House of Representatives. It was defeated by one vote in the State Senate. What if the bill was passed and signed by the governor and Delaware became a free state? How does this affect the balance of power between slave and free states? Obviously this wouldn't have a huge affect on the House of Representatives, but this would mean that the slave states would have two less Senators. How would the other slave states react?

It could potentially go a number of ways, but I really don't see too much changing, for the most part; California isn't about to be admitted as a slave state(most white Californians would rather have had just a few blacks who were all free, rather than many who were mostly or all slaves), and there were too few people in New Mexico at this time for statehood. (Maybe if this bill had come about just a few years earlier, we could have seen Texas admitted as two states)

However, though, there are a couple of options, although most of them unlikely-for one, during this time period, there were multiple attempts made by planters to introduce large scale slavery into the southern parts of Illinois and Indiana; perhaps, as a countermeasure, there is a new state carved out of these regions? One could also try the reverse of a situation that popped up in "The Story of a Party", in which parts of northern Ark. and south Missouri were lopped off to form their own state(The state of Osage, in that TL, IIRC, a product of TTL's *Reconstruction era).

One could also just revive West Florida, and make that into a new state, maybe with Pensacola as it's capital starting out.
 
Calhoun in 1850 argued that the North had *already* gained preponderance in all branches of the federal government--even in the Senate, even before the admission of California--because

"According to the last census the aggregate population of the United States amounted to 17,063,357, of which the Northern section contained 9,728,920, and the Southern 7,334,437, making a difference in round numbers, of 2,400,000. The number of States had increased from sixteen to twenty-six, making an addition of ten States. In the meantime the position of Delaware had become doubtful as to which section she properly belonged. Considering her as neutral, the Northern States will have thirteen and the
Southern States twelve, making a difference in the Senate of two Senators in favor of the former...Since the census of 1840, four States have been added to the Union --- Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas. They leave the difference in the Senate as it stood when the census was taken." https://books.google.com/books?id=v19nwcfWd-oC&pg=PA190

No doubt the abolition of slavery in Delaware in 1847 would have made Southerners even more anxious about their minority status, but I do not think it would have changed things fundamentally, because they had already pretty much written off Delaware as being anything more than nominally Southern. One of its senators, John Clayton, had even voted for the Wilmot Proviso: https://books.google.com/books?id=arQ0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA17
 
Considering that Delaware was one of the four Border States, its becoming a Free State a decade earlier may not have tipped the balance against the future Confederacy from forming. However; I'm not sure their Maryland neighbors would have just quietly accepted this change but may have even staged raids on Dover and Wilmington (as Missourians did re Laurence, Kansas) to intimidate to change their minds back. If Delaware DID become a Free State (and was able to keep that status) I wonder how many Maryland slaves would have tried to send their children there so THEY could be free if they appeared to have born after 1850? Lastly, how would Delaware have enforced the Fugitive Slave Act ?
Kansas was raided because the state wasn't a state yet, and there was an effort by both sides to rig the vote. No one denies Delaware statehood, and raiding isn't going to accomplish anything, besides make Maryland look ridiculous.

Also note that a gradual emancipation means that Delaware will still have slaves as late as the Civil War (anyone born after 1850), so they have an incentive to enforce the fugitive slave law (and it's not like Delaware had a huge slave population even at the time).

Would Maryland slaves try to escape? Sure, but Pennsylvania is as close or closer for most of the state, and the population is likely to be more sympathetic in PA. Maryland was already one of the main sources of escaped slaves (most of the famous escapees, such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, were from Maryland), just because of it's proximity to Pennsylvania; adding another "free" state nearby won't change much politically. The overall number of escaped slaves (not counting ones who escaped for a brief period and then returned/were recaptured) was fairly small anyway; for obvious reasons the slave states took strong measures to avoid runaways. So it's not going to make much demographic impact.
 
Someone mentioned New Mexico as a possible slave state to counterbalance the loss of DE., but said its population was too small. That didn't stop Nevada from being admitted in 1864, when the whole state was practically empty, admittedly for entirely different reasons. But I can't see the Spanish population of the Santa Fe/Taos area supporting slavery. Perhaps I'm wrong; I have a history of NM somewhere, can't find it right now. I know there was bad blood between these folks and Texans in eastern NM, it just doesn't add up that the Spanish will want to cooperate with the Anglo slaveowners.
So we're too late for Texas to come in as two states, and much too early for the situation to force Kansas to be admitted as a slave state, whether it wants to or not, and in any case, California is coming in, no matter what, so you still need Dred Scott to be decided as it was OTL, plus Delaware is still nominally a slave state, with older slaves in Sussex County, so maybe there is still a balance as it was historically. FWIW, I don't see the Ozarks area becoming an additional state, or the Florida panhandle, either.
 
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