In June, 1836, the New York Conference decided that no one should be chosen as deacon or elder who did not give pledge that he would refrain from agitating the church on the subject.
The same spirit appeared in theological seminaries.

The trustees of Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, voted that students should not organize or be members of anti-slavery societies or hold meetings or lecture or speak on the subject.

Whereupon the students left in a body, and many of the professors withdrew and united with others in the founding of an anti-slavery college at Oberlin.
A persistent attack was also directed against the use of the United States mails for the distribution of anti-slavery literature.

Mob violence which involved the post-office began as early as 1830, when printed copies of Miss Grimke's Appeal to the Christian Women of the South were seized and burned in Charleston.

In 1835 large quantities of anti-slavery literature were removed from the Charleston office and in the presence of the assembled citizens committed to the flames.
Postmasters on their own motion examined the mails and refused to deliver any matter that they deemed incendiary.