[11] The Harpers, of New York, in reply to a letter from the South, complaining of the anti-slavery sentiments in a book they had recently published, stated, "since the receipt of your letter we have published an edition of the 'Woods and Fields,' _in which the offensive matter has been omitted_."
In some of the slave States laws have been passed establishing a censorship of the press, for the exclusive and special benefit of the slaveholders. Some time since an anti-slavery pamphlet was mailed at New York, directed to a gentleman in Virginia. Presently a letter was received from William Wilson, post-master at Lexington, Va., saying--
"I have to advise you that a law passed at the last session of the Legislature of this State, which took effect on the first day of this month, makes it the duty of the post-masters or their assistants to report to some magistrate (under penalty of from $50 to $200), the receipt of all _such_ publications at his office; and if, on examination, the magistrate is of opinion they come under the provision of the law, it is his duty to have them BURNT in his presence--_which operation was performed on the above mentioned pamphlet this morning_."
The Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, a well-known zealous opponent of abolition, edited, in 1835, "The Baltimore Religious Magazine." A number of this magazine contained an article from a correspondent, entitled "Bible-Slavery." The tone of this article not suiting the slave-breeders of Petersburg (Virg.), the subscribers were deprived of the numbers forwarded to them through the post-office of that town. The magazines were taken from the Office, and on the 8th May, 1838, were burnt in the street, before the door of the public reading-room, in the _presence and by the direction of the Mayor and Recorder_!!
It is surely unnecessary to remark, that this Virginia law is in contemptuous violation of the Constitution of Virginia, and of the authority of the Federal Government. The act of Congress requires each post-master to deliver the papers which come to his office to the persons to whom they are directed, and they require him to take an oath to fulfil his duty. The Virginia law imposes duties on an officer over whom they have no control, utterly at variance with his oath, and the obligations under which he assumed the office. If the postmaster must select, under a heavy penalty, for a public bonfire, all papers bearing on slavery, why may he not be hereafter required to select, for the same fate, all papers hostile to Popery? Yet similar laws are now in force in various slave States.