It was even confidently expected that a requisition would be made by the Executive of the State upon the Governor of Massachusetts for their arrest, when they would be tried under a law, which made their action felony.

"Whipping and imprisonment for the first offence, and death, without benefit of clergy, for the second." Governor Floyd said in his message to the Virginia Legislature in December that there was good cause to suspect that the plans of the Southampton massacre were "designed and matured by unrestrained fanatics in some of the neighboring States." Governor Hamilton sent to the South Carolina Legislature in the same month an excited message on the situation.

He was in entire accord with the Virginia Executive as to the primary and potent agencies which led to the slave uprising in Virginia.
They were "incendiary newspapers and other publications put forth in the non-slave-holding States, and freely circulated within the limits of Virginia." As specimens of "incendiary newspapers and other publications, put forth in the non-slave-holding States," the South Carolina official sent along with his message, copies of the _Liberator_ and of Mr.Garrison's address to the "Free People of Color," for the enlightenment of the members of the Legislature.

But it remained for Georgia to cap the climax of madness when her Legislature resolved: "That the sum of five thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to be paid to any person or persons who shall arrest, bring to trial and prosecute to conviction, under the laws of this State, the editor or publisher of a certain paper called the _Liberator_, published in the town of Boston and State of Massachusetts; or who shall arrest and bring to trial and prosecute to conviction, under the laws of this State, any other person or persons who shall utter, publish, or circulate within the limits of this State said paper called the _Liberator_, or any other paper, circular, pamphlet, letter, or address of a seditious character." This extraordinary resolve was signed Dec.

26, 1831, by "Wilson Lumpkin, Governor." The whole South was in a state of terror.