ABSTRACT
North Carolina alone contained more than ten times as many enrolled Abolitionists as all of New England and New York. Contrary to common assumption the movement for the abolition of Negro slavery in the United States began in the South rather than in the North. If the Abolition movement became anathema to Southerners after 1831, it was fostered energetically in the North by an increasing band of reformers. The Abolitionists more than compensated for their lack of numbers by their earnestness, their strenuous activity, and their overflowing eagerness to do God’s great work. The Abolitionists living near the Mason and Dixon Line, having learned to hate slavery from their first-hand contact with it, were particularly eager to help fugitive blacks. After 1850 the Abolitionist movement became an integral part of American history. Industrial expansion and a rapidly increasing population in the free states were making slavery an economic anomaly.
