Your letter was handed to me, in consequence of a duty assigned me by my delegation, and which requires me to procure all the authentic information I can, as to the nature and intentions of yours and similar associations, in order that we may, if we deem it advisable, lay the information before our people, so that they may be prepared to decide understandingly, as to the course it becomes them to pursue on this all important question.  If you “have nothing to conceal,” and it is not imposing too much on, what may have been, an unguarded proffer, I will esteem your compliance as a courtesy to an opponent, and be pleased to have an opportunity to make a suitable return.  And if, on the other hand, you have the least difficulty or objection, I trust you will not hesitate to withhold the information sought for, as I would not have it, unless as freely given, as it will, if deemed expedient, be freely used.

I am, Sir,

Your ob’d’t serv’t,

F.H.  ELMORE, of S.C.

QUESTIONS for J.G.  Birney, Esq., Cor.  Sec.  A.A.S.  Society.

1.  How many societies, affiliated with that of which you are the Corresponding Secretary, are there in the United States?  And how many members belong to them in the aggregate?

2.  Are there any other societies similar to yours, and not affiliated with it, in the United States? and how many, and what is the aggregate their members?

3.  Have you affiliation, intercourse or connection with any similar societies out of the United States, and in what countries?

4.  Do your or similar societies exist in the Colleges and other Literary institutions of the non-slaveholding States, and to what extent?

5.  What do you estimate the numbers of those who co-operate in this matter at?  What proportion do they bear in the population of the Northern states, and what in the Middle non-slaveholding states?  Are they increasing, and at what rate?

6.  What is the object your associations aim at? does it extend to the abolition of slavery only in the District of Columbia, or in the whole slave country?

7.  By what means, and under what power, do you propose to carry your views into effect?

8.  What has been for three years past, the annual income of your societies? and how is it raised?

9.  In what way, and to what purposes, do you apply these funds?

10.  How many priming presses and periodical publications have you?

11.  To what classes of persons do you address your publications, and are they addressed to the judgment, the imagination, or the feelings?

12.  Do you propagate your doctrines by any other means than oral and written discussions,—­for instance, by prints and pictures in manufactures—­say pocket handkerchiefs, &c.  Pray, state the various modes?

13.  Are your hopes and expectations increased or lessened by the events of the last year, and, especially, by the action of this Congress?  And will your exertions be relaxed or increased?