the passage of a law that would "prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the southern states, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." That part of the message was referred to a committee which reported a bill prohiWting the circulation of any newspaper "touching the subject of slavery," and removing forthwith any postmaster who distributed such newspapers. This bill, however, was defeated on the final ballot, although, strange as it may seem, it was the vote of a New Yorker, Martin Van Buren, that reported it out of committee. The legislatures of the free states adjourned without a single one of them haiving passed any of the press-muzzling laws that had been submitted to them.
This attempt to stifle free discussion marked the beginning of the end of inert submission by the free state citizens to the autocratic domination of the slave-holding power; it now began to be evident to many of thoSe who had sat quietly on the side lines hoping for peace, that when that power could dare to dictate what the North could print, and when its representatives could try to pas& laws limiting the expression of public opinion in public print, it was time to stop hoping for a peaceful solution of this intricate matter, or at least time to show some courage in discussing it.
While thoughtful men throughout the country were beginning to look at the slave issue in this light, and while northern editors were turning over in their minds the question as to whether a policy of craven silence was, after all, the best one, there came a series of sensational events, all within the field of journalism and dealing with men identified with journalism, which aroused, if not the public, men who were destined in turn to arouse the public.
Few reformers, says Barrett Wendell, have lived to
