New Jersey Gradual Abolition Act of 1804

New Jersey became the last Northern state to pass a gradual abolition law. Like New York's 1799 act, it freed no living enslaved person; only children born to enslaved mothers after passage would eventually be freed. The 1840 federal census recorded 674 people still enslaved in New Jersey under this act. New Jersey was the only Northern state where slavery appeared in the 1840 census.