to effect the abolition of slavery in the United States, to improve the character and condition of the free people of color, to inform and correct public opinion in relation to their situation and rights, and to obtain for them equal civil and political rights and privileges with the whites.”  The means which were immediately adopted by the society for the accomplishment of these objects were mainly three, than which none others could have been more effective.  These were petitioning Congress on the subject of slavery.  The publication and circulation of anti-slavery addresses and tracts, and the employment of anti-slavery agents, “in obtaining or communicating intelligence, in the publication and distribution of tracts, books, or papers, or in the execution of any measure which may be adopted to promote the objects of the society.”  Such was the simple but unequaled machinery which the New England Anti-Slavery Society relied upon for success in the war, which it had declared against American slavery.  The executive power of the body, and the operation of its machinery were lodged in a board of managers of which Garrison’s was the leading, originating mind.  The society started out bravely in the use of its means by memorializing Congress for the abolition of slavery, “in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of the United States under their jurisdiction,” and by preparing and distributing an address in maintenance of the doctrine of immediate emancipation.  The board of managers set the machinery in motion as far and as fast as the extremely limited pecuniary ability of the society would permit.  The membership was not from the rich classes.  It was Oliver Johnson who wittily remarked that not more than one or two of the original twelve, “could have put a hundred dollars into the treasury without bankrupting themselves.”  The remark was true, and was quite as applicable to any dozen of the new-comers as to the original twelve.  The society was never deficient in zeal, but it was certainly sadly wanting in money.  And money was even to such men and to such a movement an important factor in revolutionizing public opinion.

The Liberator was made the official organ of the society, and in this way was added to its other weapons that of the press.  This was a capital arrangement, for by it both the paper and the society were placed under the direction of the same masterly guidance.  There was still one arrow left in the moral quiver of the organization to reach the conscience of the people, and that was the appointment of an agent to spread the doctrines of the new propaganda of freedom.  In August the board of managers, metaphorically speaking, shot this arrow by making Garrison the agent of the society to lecture on the subject of slavery “for a period not exceeding three months.”  This was the first drop from a cloud then no bigger than a hand, but which was to grow and spread until, covering the North, was, at the end of a few short years, to flood the land with anti-slavery agents and lecturers.