Sectional Suspicions: Southern fears and 'Slave Power' In many ways the abolitionist movement can be seen as a failure as it failed to persuade white Americans to love and want to free black slaves. However, the movement was to help cause many within the two communities, North and South, to fear and be suspicious of the other. Southern Fears Northern abolitionist denunciations infuriated the South. They believed that such Northern interference threatened their way of …showed first 75 words of 517 total…

…showed last 75 words of 517 total…interpreted the gag rule as a direct threat to freedom of speech and of petition. Finally in 1844 he secured its repeal. The gag rule and Southern interference with freedom of speech seemed proof of the growing and threatening influence of 'Slave Power'. Southern slaveholders and political leaders were seen as determined to shape national policy to serve their own selfish ends, even if this imperilled the rights and liberties of everyone. (Sources Stampp page 20-26)