, 204.] This followed soon after the
excitement aroused by an attempted Negro insurrection in Charleston,
[Footnote: McMaster, United States, V., 199; Atlantic Monthly, VII.,
728.] in 1822, and from the fears aroused by this plot the south had
not yet recovered. Already Governor Wilson, of South Carolina, was
sounding the alarm in a message [Footnote: December 1, 1824. Ames,
State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 5, p. 13; Niles' Register,
XXVII., 263, 292.] denouncing the Ohio proposition, and declaring
that there would be more "glory in forming a rampart with our bodies
on the confines of our territory than to be the victims of a
successful rebellion or the slaves of a great consolidated
government." Governor Troup, of Georgia, stirred by the same
proposition, and especially by a resolution which Senator King, of
New York, submitted (February 18, 1825) for the use of the funds
arising from the public lands to aid in emancipating and removing
the slaves, warned his constituents that very soon "the United
States government, discarding the mask, will openly lend itself to a
combination of fanatics for the destruction of everything valuable
in the southern country"; and he entreated the legislature, "having
exhausted the argument, to stand by its arms.
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