England and before there had been developed in the country at
large a national feeling of responsibility for its continued
existence, interest in the subject declined. For twenty years
previous to the founding of Garrison's Liberator in 1831,
organized abolition movements had been almost unknown in New
England. In various ways the people were isolated, separated from
contact with slavery. Their knowledge of this subject of
discussion was academic, theoretical, acquired at second-hand.

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