The discussion of 1832 was followed by a decided reaction against the proposal for the abolition of slavery. Professor Thomas R. Dew, of William and Mary College, crystallized the pro-slavery sentiment in a masterful essay entitled: _A Review of the Debates in the Virginia Legislature of 1831-32_. This essay dealt with the theoretical and practical aspects of slavery in all countries and especially with the rise and development of Negro slavery in America. It pointed out the difficulties attendant upon the deportation of the free black and slave populations, and the danger to society of their emancipation without deportation. It ridiculed the idea of a successful slave uprising under the conditions then obtaining, and held that the whole discussion of so momentous a question by young and inexperienced legislators was entirely out of order.[21] The forceful argument of Professor Dew was met by one from Jesse Burton Harrison, whose essay was entitled: "A Review of the Speech of Thomas Marshall in the Virginia Assembly of 1831-32." Mr. Harrison's arguments to prove that Negro slavery in Virginia was an economic evil appeared to be merely a reiteration of the arguments of Marshall.[22] Former President Madison also replied briefly to Dew. His essay set forth that Dew had held too cheaply the presence of Negro slavery and emigration and ascribed too much importance to the influence of the tariff laws.[23] By far the most important sectional issue in Virginia during the period 1834 to 1850 was that arising out of a movement for a united slave-holding South. The Virginia Congressmen had voted as a body against the "Wilmot Proviso," the abolition of the domestic slave trade and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In spite of these facts, leading citizens of Western Virginia were trying to devise ways and means whereby to rid that portion of the State of Negro slavery. Dr. Henry Ruffner, Henry McDowell Moore and John Letcher were prominent among those who proposed a plan whereby the gradual emancipation of all slaves in the State west of the Blue Ridge Mountains would be effected. The plan was first debated in the Franklin Society at Lexington in 1847. Later it appeared as a pamphlet entitled _An Address to the People of West Virginia by a Slaveholder of West Virginia_. This pamphlet proposed to show that slavery was opposed to the public welfare and that it might be gradually abolished without results detrimental to the rights and interests of the slave holders. It contained elaborate comparisons between the slave-holding States and those not holding slaves, to the disadvantage of the former, in tending to prove that slavery was an economic evil.[24]