Before we proceed to an array of the law which applies to the case, it may be useful to inquire into the nature and character of the organization, under which the Abolition movement is carried on. As this machinery is so well known to the public, it will only be necessary to refer to such general facts as the Abolitionists themselves will not deny, however they may differ from us in the character and name ascribed to them as a whole. We observe, then, that the American Anti-Slavery Society, under the authority and by the action of which, this movement is conducted, is a _grand and permanent political organization, self-elected, self-governed, independent, and irresponsible, having no connexion with the Government of the country, but yet usurping the appropriate business of that Government_. It is an _organization_. This, certainly, will require no proof, as nobody will deny it. It is formed after the model of the Religious and Benevolent Society system, which has been in action for about thirty years past, and which, in the later parts of this period, has grown into considerable importance in the United States and in Great Britain. The social influence of this system has been much greater in this country than in the father land. But so long and so far as it was confined to religious and benevolent objects, the political authorities and feeling of the community seem to have taken little or no alarm. It was obvious, from experience and observation, that these organizations were armed with a wide spread, and many of them with an all pervading influence; and that they were admirably calculated to acquire power, and to bring to bear an efficient and energetic action on their specific objects. In their history and progress, as their exigencies have seemed to require, they have severally erected a sort of State machinery, with a Constitution as a general basis of polity; with the customary law-making, executive and judicial powers; with principal and under secretaries; with a fiscal department; and with numerous subsidiary agencies, according to the nature and extent of their operations. Some of these institutions are engaged in enterprises as wide as the globe, have numerous foreign establishments of no mean consideration, and foreign colonies have been erected and are governed by them. Nothing but a state machinery, with a corresponding polity, was adequate to the execution of such designs. And while they were confined to religious and benevolent operations, they had not excited the jealousy of the political world; at least, so far as we know, not to any considerable extent.