A movement was begun in the year 1835, on the part of the Southern press and Southern Legislatures to induce penal legislation in the North against the expression of antislavery sentiments. The _Richmond Whig_ revealed its opinion of its Northern allies when it said: "Depend upon it, the Northern people will never sacrifice their lucrative trade with the South so long as the hanging of a few thousands will prevent it." In obedience to these demands, pro-slavery men in the North were actually to be found proposing legislation intended to destroy the freedom of the press and to make antislavery expression a criminal offence. Judge Jay took occasion to meet this movement in a charge which he delivered to the Westchester Grand Jury, in which he said: "Any law which might be passed to abridge in the slightest degree the freedom of speech or of the press, or to shield any one subject from discussion, would be utterly null and void; and it would be the duty of every genuine republican to resist with energy and decision so palpable an outrage on the declared will of the people." These remarks were widely published and did much to discourage the pro-slavery agitators. But other illegitimate and violent schemes to reduce to silence antislavery men were soon brought into play. South Carolina having inaugurated the assault upon the constitutional rights of the North through the post-office, Alabama followed in a yet bolder step against the personal security of abolitionists. Governor Gayle, of that State, demanded of the Governor of New York that Ransom G. Williams, the publishing agent of the Antislavery Society, should be surrendered to him to be tried under the laws of Alabama on an indictment found against him by the Grand Jury for publishing in the _Emancipator_, in the city of New York, the following sentiment: "God commands and all nature cries out that man should not be held as property. The system of making men property has plunged two and a quarter millions of our fellow-countrymen into the deepest physical and moral degradation, and they are every moment sinking deeper." This expression was the most offensive which the Alabama Grand Jury could discover in the documents of the society on which to base the indictment and demand, and as the one which came nearest to anything resembling an attempt to incite the slaves to insurrection. Williams had never been in the State of Alabama, was never subject to its laws, had never fled from its jurisdiction, and these facts were admitted by the Governor when he made requisition for Williams as a "fugitive from justice." While the American Antislavery Society was considering what action it should take for the protection of its agent, Lewis Tappan wrote to Judge Jay (8th September) suggesting that he should get the opinion of two or three eminent lawyers on the subject to be circulated by the society. Jay replied: "The Southern papers have intimated that Northern abolitionists may be indicted in the