They claimed that they had no participation in its introduction, and laid blame of involuntary servitude of blacks on “old Grandam Britain.” Nonetheless, few Southerners were willing to also frame slavery “a sin.” This attitude resulted in a situation where “slave states contained a great many more anti-slavery societies than the free states.” After the Abolitionists’ escalated their intellectual attacks against slavery as a violation of natural rights and self-ownership principles, pro-slavery Southerners felt threatened and retaliated with their own philosophical and morality-based justifications to defend involuntary servitude.