sentences:  By the 1850 census there are no slaves in the free states; there were still hundreds in the 1840 census (and millions in the South).In the South, sometimes influenced by appeals from preachers — abolitionism in the United States had a strong religious component — some individuals freed their slaves, or left in their wills instructions to free them upon their owner's death.The number of free Blacks in the new United States skyrocketed, and the question of "what to do with them" steadily grew in importance.