The "settlement" of the question in Congress seemed to be merely the signal for its agitation among the non-slaveholding States. Fanatics sprang up like mushrooms, and, "in the name of God," proclaimed the enormity of slavery and eternal damnation to all who indulged in the wicked luxury. Among the earliest and most notable of these philanthropic reformers was one Benjamin Lundy, who, in the year 1821, commenced the publication of a monthly periodical called the "_Genius of Universal Emancipation_," which was successively published at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington City, and frequently _en route_ during his travels wherever he could find a press. It is related of him that at one time he traversed the free States lecturing, collecting, obtaining subscribers, stirring up the people, writing for his paper, getting it printed where he could, stopping to read the "proof" on the road, and directing and mailing his papers at the nearest post-office. Then, packing up in his trunk his column-rules, type, "heading" and "direction book," he pushed along like a thorough-going pioneer. What this solitary "Friend"--for such he was--in this manner accomplished, he himself states in an appeal to the public in 1830. He says:-- "I have within the period above mentioned (ten years) sacrificed several thousands of dollars of my own hard earnings; I have travelled upwards of five thousand miles on foot and more than twenty thousand in other ways; have visited nineteen States of this Union, and held more than two hundred public meetings--have performed two voyages to the West Indies, by which means the emancipation of a considerable number of slaves has been effected, and I hope the way paved for the enfranchisement of many more." INSURRECTION AT CHARLESTON, S. C. The year 1822 was marked by one of the most nefarious negro plots ever developed in the history of the country. The first revelation was made to the Mayor of the city of Charleston on the 30th of May, 1822, by a gentleman who had on the morning of the same day returned from the country, and obtained on his arrival an inkling of what was going on from a confidential slave, to whom the secret had been imparted. Investigations were immediately set on foot, and one of the slaves who was apprehended, fearing a summary execution, confessed all he knew. He said he had known of the plot for some time; that it was very extensive, embracing an indiscrimate massacre of the whites, and that the blacks were to be headed by an individual who carried about him a charm which rendered him invulnerable. The period fixed for the rising was on Sunday, the 16th of June, at twelve o'clock at night.