This condemnation spoke to a long-standing grievance of slavery’s foes: the stifling of discourse about the South’s “peculiar institution.” The silencing included a gag on anti-slavery petitions in Congress and the seizure of abolitionist publications mailed to the South. To critics, this censorship showed that the “Slave Power” not only subjugated Africans. It suppressed the fundamental American freedoms of speech and belief.
