Mr. Everett, then (1836) Governor of Massachusetts, informed the Legislature, for the admonition of these unsparing agitators against the peace of the South, that "every thing that tends to disturb the relations created by this compact [the Constitution] is at war with its spirit; and whatever, by direct and necessary operation, is calculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves, has been held by highly respectable legal authority an offence against the peace of this Commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." It was proposed in the Legislature to pass an act defining the offence with more certainty, and attaching to it a severer penalty. The Abolitionists asked to be heard before the committee; and Rev. S. J. May, Ellis Gray Loring, Prof. Charles Follen, Samuel E. Sewell, and others of equal ability and character, spoke in their behalf. They objected to the passage of such an act in the strongest terms, and derided the value of a Union which could not protect its citizens in one of their most cherished rights. During the hearing, several bitter altercations took place between them and the chairman. In New York, Gov. Marcy called upon the Legislature "to do what may be done consistently with the great principles of civil liberty, to put an end to the evils which the Abolitionists are bringing upon us and the whole country." The "character" and the "interests" of the State were equally at stake, and both would be sacrificed unless these furious and cruel fanatics were effectually suppressed. In May, 1836, the Federal House of Representatives resolved, by overwhelming votes, that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the States, or in the District of Columbia, and that henceforth all abolition petitions should be laid on the table without being printed or referred. And, one day later than the date of Mr. Lincoln's protest, Mr. Van Buren declared in his inaugural, that no bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, or meddling with it in the States where it existed, should ever receive his signature. "There was no other form," says Benton, "at that time, in which slavery agitation could manifest itself, or place it could find a point to operate; the ordinance of 1787 and the compromise of 1820 having closed up the Territories against it. Danger to slave property in the States, either by direct action, or indirectly through the District of Columbia, were the only points of expressed apprehension." Abolition agitations fared little better in the twenty-fifth Congress than in the twenty-fourth. At the extra session in September of 1837, Mr. Slade of Vermont introduced two petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; but, after a furious debate and a stormy scene, they were disposed of by the adoption of the following:--