Common sense suggests that no southern politician in his right mind dared to preach Slavery in the Abstract to enfranchised, notoriously touchy, and well-armed nonslaveholders. So much for common sense. The South's foremost politicians freely expounded it to nonslaveholders and “middling folks.” Increased interest in Slavery in the Abstract owed much to the influence of local leaders, whom a politically well-informed and engaged citizenry trusted and followed, especially during crises. Notably, the nonslaveholders and small slaveholders of East Tennessee heard and read speeches by two men who, before the War, hated each other and campaigned respectively for the Democrats and Whigs. Andrew Johnson, a Jefferson-Jackson Democrat, and the Methodist Reverend William G. (“Parson”) Brownlow, a Hamilton-Clay Whig, fought each other but, in step with public opinion, stood together for the Union. Yet both Johnson and Brownlow accepted the essentials of Slavery in the Abstract, proclaiming slavery normal in civilized society.

A former tailor and self-conscious representative of artisans, mechanics, and yeomen, Johnson focused on race relations, yet time and again he ended with racially qualified class relations.