It was this which made the impression
on the minds of many, that there was little or no restraint to prevent
the Government from doing whatever it might choose to do. This was
sufficient of itself to put the most fanatical portion of the North in
action, for the purpose of destroying the existing relation between the
two races in the South.
The first organized movement toward it commenced in 1835. Then, for the
first time, societies were organized, presses established, lecturers
sent forth to excite the people of the North, and incendiary
publications scattered over the whole South, through the mail. The South
was thoroughly aroused. Meetings were held everywhere, and resolutions
adopted, calling upon the North to apply a remedy to arrest the
threatened evil, and pledging themselves to adopt measures for their
own protection, if it was not arrested. At the meeting of Congress,
petitions poured in from the North, calling upon Congress to abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia, and to prohibit, what they called,
the internal slave trade between the States--announcing at the same
time, that their ultimate object was to abolish slavery, not only in the
District, but in the States and throughout the Union.
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