Question

Which of the following best explains why non-slaveholding farmers sided with planters against the abolitionist movement?
A. Planters promised to give nonslaveholding farmers new benefits if they worked together.
B. Non-slaveholding farmers worried that abolitionists were going to create a new nullification crisis focused on slavery.
C. Non-slaveholding farmers tended to see themselves one day becoming planters and plantation owners.
D. Non-slaveholding farmers did not believe that northern Americans should comment on the institution of slavery.

Answer 1

C. Non-slaveholding farmers tended to see themselves one day becoming planters and plantation owners.

They supported slavery for both economic and social reasons: the slave system preserved a racial hierarchy that gave poor whites status and hope of upward mobility (owning land and slaves), so they allied with planters against abolitionists.