Garrison, meantime, made both friends and enemies at the North. He had the support of nearly four hundred anti-slavery societies in 1835; but some of these had been founded in Ohio by Lundy on the principle of gradual emancipation, and others in New York by Jay, whose main objects were repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act and emancipation in the District of Columbia. Agitation for immediate abolition without compensation was nowhere active at that time, except in New England. The highest estimate of its partisans in 1840 was only two hundred thousand; most of them had already renounced the leadership of Garrison; and there is no reason to believe that the number of his thorough going followers ever reached one hundred thousand. Most of the original abolitionists were church members; and the agitation was never opposed, even at first, by so large a proportion of the clergy at the North as of the people generally. Several ministers joined Garrison at once; 125 enrolled their names for publication as abolitionists in 1833; and two years later he had the open support of the New England Methodist Conference, the Maine Baptist Convention, and the Detroit Presbytery, as well as of many Congregationalists, and of most of the Quakers, Unitarians, and Free-Will Baptists. Preaching against slavery was not common in denominations where the pastor was more liable to be gagged by ecclesiastical superiors. One reason that this authority, as well as that of public opinion in the Northern cities, was directed against agitation, was the pressure of business interests. The South sent most of her products, especially cotton, to manufacturers or merchants in Philadelphia, New York, and New England. This region in return supplied her with clothes, tools, and furniture. Much of her food came from the Western farmers; and these latter were so unable to send grain or cattle eastward until after 1850, that the best road for most of them to market was the Mississippi. The slave-holders were such good customers, that people along the Ohio River, as well as in Eastern seaports and factory towns, were slow to see how badly the slaves were oppressed. Enlightenment on this subject, as well as about capacity for free labour, was also delayed by prejudices of race and colour, while there was much honest ignorance throughout the North. What was best understood about slavery was that it was merely a State institution, not to be abolished or even much ameliorated by the national Government. The main responsibility rested accordingly upon the Southern States; and the danger that these might be provoked to secede could not be overlooked. These considerations prevented the majority of the Northerners, and especially the leading members of every sect, from opposing slavery as actively as they would otherwise have been glad to do.