rged it
upon the free colored people, and urged their expulsion, forgetting that
in North Carolina the plot was betrayed by one of this class, and that
in Virginia there were but two engaged, both of whom had slave-wives.
The slaveholding clergymen traced it to want of knowledge of the Bible,
forgetting that Nat Turner knew scarcely anything else. On the other
hand, "a distinguished citizen of Virginia" combined in one sweeping
denunciation "Northern incendiaries, tracts, Sunday-schools, religion,
reading, and writing."

But whether the theories of its origin were wise or foolish,
the insurrection made its mark, and the famous band of Virginia
emancipationists who all that winter made the House of Delegates ring
with unavailing eloquence--till the rise of slave-exportation to
new cotton regions stopped their voices--were but the unconscious
mouth-pieces of Nat Turner. In January, 1832, in reply to a member who
had called the outbreak a "petty affair," the eloquent James McDowell
thus described the impression it left behind:--

"Now, Sir, I ask you, I ask gentlemen, in conscience to say, was that
a 'petty affair' which startled the feelings of your whole
population,--which threw a portion of it into alarm, a portion of it
into panic,--which wrung out from an affrighted people the thrilling
cry, day after day, conveyed to your executive, '_We are in peril of our
lives; send us an army for defence_'? Was that a 'petty affair' which
drove families from their homes,--which assembled women and children in
crowds, without shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition
of weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and terror
could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet death from
famine, death from climate, death from hardships, preferring anything
rather than the horrors of meeting it from a domestic assassin? Was that
a 'petty affair' which erected a peaceful and confiding portion of the
State into a military camp,--which outlawed from pity the unfortunate
beings whose brothers had offended,--which barred every door, penetrated
every bosom with fear or suspicion,--which so banished every sense of
security from every man's dwelling, that, let but a hoof or horn break
upon the silence of the night, and an aching throb would be driven to
the heart, the husband would look to his weapon, and the mother would
shudder and weep upon her cradle? Was it the fear of Nat Turner, and his
deluded, drun