Why did the abolition movement arouse resentment among many Northerners as well as many Southerners?

Question

Why did the abolition movement arouse resentment among many Northerners as well as many Southerners?

Answer 1

Northerners didn't want the slaves to come to the North and compete for their jobs.

Answer 2

Northerners were afraid if Blacks were freed they would move north and take "their" factory jobs - which was a very real possibility.  They were also afraid they would create "slum" areas because they could not afford housing otherwise.

Answer 3

And others regarded the abolition movement as a 'Trojan Horse' whose success would threaten an erosion of what they saw as essential States Rights, for the benefit of central Government.

To adapt Voltaire, they may not have agreed with slavery, but they were willing to defend the right of a pro-slavery State to tell everyone else to mind their own business.

Answer 4

The first two answers are good ones.  I would add that several of the new states of the upper mid-west, like Indiana, and Michigan had laws preventing Blacks from living there.  I would also note that the nation was very religious at the time.  The abolitionist movement had in its leadership people like Julia Ward Howe, Harriette Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and of course John Brown among others.  These leaders had adopted a new philosophical/religious believe know as Unitarianism, which basically taught salvation by good works over salvation by grace as taught by most mainstream Christian churches as well as some other teachings that turned many Christians off.  Abolitionist were very "finger pointing" and "holier than thou" types. For this reason, abolitionist were viewed as radical religious nut cases by the rest of the country.   Also, during the 1850's Unitarianism began to raise to the point that Northern Protestant Churches split with Southern Protestant Churches along with the country's split.

Answer 5

Southerners obviously considered any abolition movement or group a threat to their economy. They believed that slavery was a justifiable form of labor and many slave owners actually believed the slave was better off working for a master than he would be were he still a free man in Africa or even a free man in the nation.

Some people in the North also did not consider slavery evil. Many also believed that, if slavery were left alone, it would eventually die out. Northerners also believed that radical abolitionist groups, like John Brown and his followers, would only stir up sectional disputes and cause a rift in the nation that would lead to war.