In the Appalachian Mountains, however, the settlers were loath to follow the fortunes of the ardent pro-slavery element.  Actual abolition was never popular in western Virginia, but the love of the people of that section for freedom kept them estranged from the slaveholding districts of the State, which by 1850 had completely committed themselves to the pro-slavery propaganda.  In the Convention of 1829-30 Upshur said there existed in a great portion of the West (of Virginia) a rooted antipathy to the slave.[26] John Randolph was alarmed at the fanatical spirit on the subject of slavery, which was growing up in Virginia.  Some of this sentiment continued in the mountains.  The highlanders, therefore, found themselves involved in a continuous embroglio because they were not moved by reactionary influences which were unifying the South for its bold effort to make slavery a national institution.[27]

The indoctrination of the backwoodsmen of North Carolina in the tenets of slavery was effected without much difficulty because of less impediment in the natural barriers, but a small proportion of the inhabitants of the State residing in the mountainous districts continued anti-slavery.  There was an unusually strong anti-slavery element in Davie, Davidson, Granville and Guilford counties.  The efforts of this liberal group, too, were not long in taking organized form.  While there were several local organizations operating in various parts, the efforts of the anti-slavery people centered around the North Carolina Manumission Society.  It had over forty branches at one time, besides several associations of women, all extending into seven or eight of the most populous counties of the State.  This society denounced the importation and exportation of slaves, and favored providing for manumissions, legalizing slave contracts for the purchase of freedom, and enacting a law that at a certain age all persons should be born free.[28] That these reformers had considerable influence is evidenced by the fact that in 1826 a member of the manumission society was elected to the State Senate.  In 1824 and 1826 two thousand slaves were freed in North Carolina.[29] Among the distinguished men who at times supported this movement in various ways were Hinton Rowan Helper, Benjamin S. Hedrick, Daniel R. Goodloe, Eli W. Caruthers, and Lunsford Lane, a colored orator and lecturer of considerable ability.[30] They constituted a hopeless minority, however, for the liberal element saw their hopes completely blasted in the triumph of the slave party in the Convention of 1835, which made everything subservient to the institution of slavery.