At the close of the year 1835, President Jackson had called the attention of Congress to the doings of these people in language corresponding to the natural wrath with which he viewed the character of their proceedings. "I must also," said he, "invite your attention to the painful excitements in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of slaves, in prints and various sorts of publications calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of civil war. It is fortunate for the country that the good sense, the generous feeling, and deep-rooted attachment of the people of the non-slaveholding States to the Union and their fellow-citizens of the same blood in the South have given so strong and impressive a tone to the sentiments entertained against the proceedings of the misguided persons who have engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, and especially against the emissaries from foreign parts, who have dared to interfere in this matter, as to authorize the hope that these attempts will no longer be persisted in.... I would therefore call the special attention of Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." Mr. Clay said the sole purpose of the Abolitionists was to array one portion of the Union against the other. "With that in view, in all their leading prints and publications, the alleged horrors of slavery are depicted in the most glowing and exaggerated colors, to excite the imaginations and stimulate the rage of the people of the Free States against the people of the slaveholding States.... Why are the Slave States wantonly and cruelly assailed? Why does the abolition press teem with publications tending to excite hatred and animosity on the part of the Free States against the Slave States?... Why is Congress petitioned? Is their purpose to appeal to our understanding, and actuate our humanity? And do they expect to accomplish that purpose by holding us up to the scorn and contempt and detestation of the people of the Free States and the whole civilized world?... Union on the one side will beget union on the other.... One section will stand in menacing, hostile array against another; the collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms."