In New York and New Jersey slaves were much more numerous than in New England.There were still slaves in considerable numbers until about 1825.The people had a knowledge of the institution from experience and observation, and there was no break in the continuity of their organized abolition societies.Chief among the objects of these societies was the effort to prevent kidnapping and to guard the rights of free negroes.For both of these purposes there was a continuous call for activity.
Pennsylvania also had freedmen of her own whose rights called for guardianship, as well as many freedmen from farther south who had come into the State.
The movement of protest and protection did not stop at Mason and Dixon's Line, but extended far into the South.In both North Carolina and Tennessee an active protest against slavery was at all times maintained.In this great middle section of the country, between New England and South Carolina, there was no cessation in the conflict between free and slave labor.Some of these States became free while others remained slave; but between the people of the two sections there was continuous communication.Slaveholders came into free States to liberate their slaves.Non-slaveholders came to get rid of the competition of slave labor, and free negroes came to avoid reenslavement.
Slaves fled thither on their way to liberty.It was not a matter of choice; it was an unavoidable condition which compelled the people of the border States to give continuous attention to the institution of slavery.
The modern anti-slavery movement had its origin in this great middle section, and from the same source it derived its chief support.The great body of active abolitionists were from the slave States or else derived their inspiration from personal contact with slavery.As compared with New England abolitionists, the middlestate folk were less extreme in their views.They had a keener appreciation of the difficulties involved in emancipation.
They were more tolerant towards the idea of letting the country at large share the burdens involved in the liberation of the slaves.Border-state abolitionists naturally favored the policy of gradual emancipation which had been followed in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.Abolitionists who continued to reside in the slave States were forced to recognize the fact that emancipation involved serious questions of race adjustment.From the border States came the colonization society, a characteristic institution, as well as compromise of every variety.
The southernmost section, including South Carolina, Georgia, and the Gulf States, was even more sharply defined in the attitude it assumed toward the anti-slavery movement.At no time did the cause of emancipation become formidable in this section.In all these States there was, of course, a large class of non-slaveholding whites, who were opposed to slavery and who realized that they were victims of an injurious system; but they had no effective organ for expression.The ruling minority gained an early and an easy victory and to the end held a firm hand.To the inhabitants of this section it appeared to be a self-evident truth that the white race was born to rule and the black race was born to serve.Where negroes outnumbered the whites fourfold, the mere suggestion of emancipation raised a race question which seemed appalling in its proportions.Either in the Union or out of the Union, the rulers were determined to perpetuate slavery.
Slavery as an economic institution became dependent upon a few semitropical plantation crops.When the Constitution was framed, rice and indigo, produced in South Carolina and Georgia, were the two most important.Indigo declined in relative importance, and the production of sugar was developed, especially after the annexation of the Louisiana Purchase.But by far the most important crop for its effects upon slavery and upon the entire country was cotton.This single product finally absorbed the labor of half the slaves of the entire country.Mr.Rhodes is not at all unreasonable in his surmise that, had it not been for the unforeseen development of the cotton industry, the expectation of the founders of the Republic that slavery would soon disappear would actually have been realized.
