Question

the influence of revolutionary ideas quiz
questions 1 through 3 refer to the following.
“the emancipation of slaves in new england, beginning around 1780, was a gradual process, whether by post - nati statutes freeing the children of enslaved people after a certain date, as in rhode island and connecticut, or by judicial and constitutional interpretations discouraging slaveholding without clearly outlawing it. the gradual nature of the process encouraged whites to transfer a language and set of practices shaped in the context of slavery to their relations with a slowly emerging population of free people of color. the rhetoric of emancipation assumed that free people of color would remain dependent on white support and would not challenge white assumptions that revolutionary republics required citizens to be independent and orderly; the presence of dependent people of color was thought to be a problem requiring firm management in the new republic...
even more problematic was the promise implicit in antislavery rhetoric that abolition, by ending ‘the problem’ - the sin of slavery and the troublesome presence of slaves - would result in the eventual absence of people of color themselves. in other words, whites anticipated that free people of color, would, by some undefined means (always imminent), leave the united states.
joanne pope melish, historian, disowning slavery: gradual emancipation and ‘race’ in new england, 1780 - 1860, published in 1998
1 mark for review
the author claims in the excerpt that antislavery rhetoric in the late eighteenth century was based on
a the belief that emancipated people would not be a presence in society
b religious ideals formed during the first great awakening
c legal precedent established during the colonial period
d the concern that revolutionary conflict would spread from france to the united states
question 1 of 3

Explanation:

The text mentions that whites assumed emancipated people would be a problem, implying they thought emancipated people would not fit in society. This aligns with option A. There is no mention of religious ideals from the First Great Awakening (B), legal precedent from the colonial period (C), or fear of French - revolutionary conflict spreading (D) in relation to the antislavery rhetoric.

Answer:

A. the belief that emancipated people would not be a presence in society