Massachusetts was hearkening with a sort of fascination to the song of the slave syren.  And no wonder.  For the song of the slave syren was swelling and clashing the while with passionate and imperious energy.  South Carolina had led off in this kind of music.  In December following the Boston mob Governor McDuffie, pitched the key of the Southern concert in his message to the legislature descriptive of anti-slavery publications, and denunciatory of the anti-slavery agitation.  The Abolitionists were, to his mind, “enemies of the human race,” and the movement for immediate emancipation ought to be made a felony punishable “by death without benefit of clergy.”  He boldly denied that slavery was a political evil, and vaunted it instead as “the corner stone of our republican edifice.”  The legislature upon the receipt of this extraordinary message proceeded to demand of the free States the suppression, by effective legislation, of anti-slavery societies and their incendiary publications.  The burden of this demand was directly caught up by North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia.  But there were some things which even a pro-slavery North could not do to oblige the South.  Neither party, much as both desired it, dared to undertake the violation by law of the great right of free speech and of the freedom of the press.  Not so, however, was it with sundry party leaders, notably the governors of New York and Massachusetts, who were for trying the strong arm of the law as an instrument for suppressing Abolitionism.  Edward Everett was so affected by the increasing Southern excitement and his fears for the safety of the dear Union that he must needs deliver himself in his annual message upon the Abolition agitation.  He was of the opinion that the Abolitionists were guilty of an offence against Massachusetts which might be “prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law.”  He evidently did not consider that in the then present state of political parties and of public opinion any repressive legislation upon the subject could be got through the legislature, and hence the immense utility of the old machinery of the common law, as an instrument for putting down the agitation.  But in order to get this machinery into operation, careful preparation was necessary.  Proof must not be wanting as to the dangerous and unpatriotic character and tendency of the movement to be repressed.  There should be the most authoritative utterance upon this point to warrant the effective intervention of the Courts and Grand Juries of the commonwealth in the prosecution of the Abolitionists, as disturbers of the peace.  Ergo the Governor’s deliverance in his annual message against them.  Now, if the legislature could be brought to deliver itself in tones not less certain, the third cooerdinate branch of the State government might catch its cue and act with energy in suppressing the disturbers of the peace of the commonwealth and of the dear Union as well.  This was the scheme, the conspiracy