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In "To the Public," William Lloyd Garrison maintains that in terms of abolition of slavery "contempt [was] more bitter, opposition more active...prejudice more stubborn" in which region of the United States?

User MrDanA
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Final answer:

William Lloyd Garrison experienced the most bitter contempt, active opposition, and stubborn prejudice in the North due to beliefs that abolition would disrupt societal norms and threaten job security for White people.

Step-by-step explanation:

In To the Public, William Lloyd Garrison noted that in terms of the abolition of slavery, contempt was more bitter, opposition more active, and prejudice more stubborn in the North. Northern anti-abolitionists feared the consequences of slavery's end, believing that free Black people would take jobs from White people and disrupt societal order. The region was permeated with racism during the Age of Jackson, and even other abolitionists found Garrison's views and the radicalism of figures like John Brown to be uncomfortable and extreme. The North, with its industrial economy, contrasted sharply with the South's agrarian society, which depended on slave labor, leading to starkly different views on abolition.

Garrison, a leader in the abolitionist movement, encountered severe resistance for his uncompromising stance on immediate emancipation through his newspaper, The Liberator. His denouncement of slavery as a national sin and advocacy for instantaneous abolition were met with hostility, particularly in the North where societal norms were being challenged, and the status quo threatened by the prospect of abolition.

User Omar Abdel Bari
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