]
[Footnote 85: The debate is summarized in Henry Wilson, _History of the
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_ (Boston, 1872), I, 190-207.]
In the remaining ante-bellum decades, though the actual outbreaks were
negligible except for John Brown's raid, the discoveries, true or false,
and the rumors, mostly unwarranted, were somewhat more frequent than
before. Revelations in Madison County, Mississippi, in 1835 shortly before
July 4, told of a conspiracy of whites and blacks scheduled for that day
as a ramification of the general plot of the Murrell gang recently
exposed.[86] A mass meeting thereupon appointed an investigating committee
of thirteen citizens with power to apply capital punishment; and several
whites together with ten or fifteen blacks were promptly put to death.[87]
[Footnote 86: See above, pp. 381, 382.]
[Footnote 87: _The Liberator_ (Boston, Mass.), Aug. 8, 1835, quoting the
Clinton, Miss., _Gazette_ of July 11.]
Widespread rumors at the beginning of the following December that a general
uprising was in preparation for the coming holiday season caused the
summons of citizens in various Georgia counties to mass meetings which with
one accord recommended special precautions by masters, patrols and militia,
and appointed committees of vigilance.
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