1904, I. 469.]

[Footnote 80: American Historical Association _Report_ for 1904, pp. 469,
470.]

[Footnote 81: _Federal Union_, Oct. 6 and 13 and Dec. 1, 1831.]

There were doubtless episodes of such a sort in many other localities.[82]
It was evidently to this period that the reminiscences afterward collected
by Olmsted applied. "'Where I used to live,'" a backwoodsman formerly of
Alabama told the traveller, "'I remember when I was a boy--must ha' been
about twenty years ago--folks was dreadful frightened about the niggers. I
remember they built pens in the woods where they could hide, and Christmas
time they went and got into the pens, 'fraid the niggers was risin'.' 'I
remember the same time where we were in South Carolina,' said his wife, 'we
had all our things put up in bags, so we could tote 'em if we heerd they
was comin' our way.'"[83]

[Footnote 82: The discovery of a plot at Shelbyville, Tennessee, was
reported at the end of 1832. _Niles' Register_, XLI, 340.]

[Footnote 83: F.L. Olmsted, _A Journey in the Back Country_ (New York,
1863), p. 203.]

Another sort of sequel to the Southampton revolt was of course a plenitude
of public discussion and of repressive legislation. In Virginia a flood of
memorials poured upon the legislature. Petitions signed by 1,188 citizens
in twelve counties asked for provision for the expulsion of colored
freemen; others with 398 signatures from six counties proposed an amendment
to the United States Constitution empowering Congress to aid Virginia to
rid herself of all the blacks; others from two colonization societies
and 366 citizens in four counties proposed the removal first of the
free negroes and then of slaves to be emancipated by private or public
procedure; 27 men of Buckingham and Loudon Counties and others in
Albemarle, together with the Society of Friends in Hanover and 347 women,
prayed for the abolition of slavery, some on the _post nati_ plan and
others without specification of details.[84] The House of Delegates
responded by devoting most of its session of that winter to an
extraordinarily outspoken and wide-ranging debate on the many phases of the
negro problem, reflecting and elaborating all the sentiments expressed in
the petitions together with others more or less original with the members
themselves. The Richmond press reported the debate in great detail, and
many of the speeches were given a pamphlet circulation in addition.[85]
The only tangible outcom