lecturer, George Thompson, then in this country; until the
cruelties, characterising slavery in Jamaica, were supposed and
believed by many to be practised in the Southern States.

Naturally enough, the principal avenue between the promoter of
anti-slavery views and the voter was the United States mails, and
these were freighted with abolition documents. It is likely that
Harrison Gray Otis, the wealthy and aristocratic mayor of Boston, did
not exaggerate when he advised the southern magistrate, who desired
the suppression of Garrison's _Liberator_, that "its office was an
obscure hole, its editor's only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his
supporters a few insignificant persons of all colours;"[286] but the
Southerners knew that from that "obscure hole" issued a paper of
uncompromising spirit, which was profoundly impressing the people of
the United States, and their journals and orators teemed with
denunciations. The Richmond _Whig_ characterised Abolitionists as
"hell-hounds," warning the northern merchants that unless these
fanatics were hung they would lose the benefit of southern trade. A
Charleston paper threatened to cut out and "cast upon the dunghill"
the tongue of any one who should lecture upon the evils or immorality
of slavery. The Augusta _Chronicle_ declared that if the question be
longer discussed the Southern States would secede and settle the
matter by the sword, as the only possible means of self-preservation.
A prominent Alabama clergyman advised hanging every man who favoured
emancipation, and the Virginia Legislature called upon the
non-slave-holding States to suppress abolition associations by penal
statutes.

[Footnote 286: Horace Greeley, _The American Conflict_, Vol. 1, p. 122,
_note_.]

In the midst of such sentiments, it was evident to Van Buren, whose
election depended upon the Southern States, that something definite
must be done, and that nothing would be considered definite by the
South which did not aim at the total abolition of the anti-slavery
agitator. Accordingly, his friends held meetings in every county in
the State, adopting resolutions denouncing them as "fanatics and
traitors to their country," and indorsing Van Buren "as a patriot
opposed to the hellish abolition factions and all their heresies." Van
Buren himself arranged for the great meeting at Albany at which
Governor Marcy presided. "I send you the inclosed proceedings of the
citizens of Albany," wrote Van Buren to