The plan of a new paper, to be under their own dictation, and in an attitude of opposition to the man and to the paper whom their misrepresentations had made odious, could not fail to be approved by the _ministry_; but to _abolitionists_, a different form of introduction was found necessary. To them it was represented that it would aid the Liberator, and that possibly Mr. Garrison might be induced to become the editor. Its comparative cheapness, too, was an inducement to some honest minds, who were unaware of its purpose to effect a division in their ranks. More than a year had elapsed since the clerical appeal conspiracy. Some of the appellants had become officers of county Societies. Certain of their brethren in spirit, as well as in the ministry, had taken the lead in town Societies;--a creeping movement was in this way going on among them, to get the control of the organizations; and, co-operating with it, were the young theologians who had aided the old attempt against the cause; now, some of them, as the occupants of pulpits, rejoicing in the opportunity to lend their aid to the new one. Mr. Phelps, in whom general confidence was yet unimpaired, was every where warm in his eulogies of Mr. Torrey’s diligence in the cause. But those who had opportunities of observing his course closely, were made aware that mischief and diligence are by no means incompatible. His labors were unremitting to weaken the bonds of relationship between the County Society and the State Society. The abolitionists of Essex, generally, saw not the tendency and design of these efforts. They could be made without suspicion, as the National Society had ever been a favorite with Massachusetts men, with whom it originated, and who constitute the largest portion of its efficient members. Such men could not readily conceive of the possibility of acting in their _County_ capacity or their _National_ capacity, in opposition to themselves in their State capacity. But the active brains of the Secretary of the Executive Committee at New York, together with the Secretaries of the Massachusetts and the Essex County Societies, had devised and cherished the idea of such a change, though it would necessarily convert the affiliated Anti-Slavery system from a harmonious whole, into jarring and discordant divisions. A society had, before this, been formed in the western part of the State, to be directly auxiliary to the National Society. This circumstance was unnoticed at the time, except by a few, who waited for the light of future events by which to interpret its meaning. Such disunion and derangement could not be easily effected in the region where the free spirit first laid the broad foundations of its organized action. It was necessary to cast about for some plausible ground on which to create division of feeling, and to proceed upon it with the utmost caution.