Talk:Sailing to Philadelphia

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[edit] Mis-statement about "Mason-Dixon Line"

The article says:

The title track is about the surveying of the Mason-Dixon line, the demarcation established in 1781 between the free and the slave states.

This is incorrect, and probably just sloppy writing. It conflates the surveying of the disputed borders of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware (1763 and 1767) with the cultural import the line took on after 1781, when PA abolished slavery. The Wikipedia article on the Mason-Dixon Line clarifies the point:

After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the Ohio River became a border between free and slave states, although Delaware remained a slave state. Popular speech, especially since the Missouri compromise of 1820, uses the Mason-Dixon line symbolically as a cultural boundary between the Northern United States and the Southern United States (Dixie).

The Mason–Dixon line was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute in colonial North America. Maryland and Pennsylvania both claimed the land between the 39th and 40th parallels according to the charters granted to each colony.

--Logomachon 22:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)