5th. That we desire every County and Town Society, which may hold a meeting previous to the annual meeting of the State Society, to take up and pass an opinion on this subject. These resolutions were lithographed and sent to the officers of Societies, by Mr. Phelps, Mr. St. Clair, and Mr. Torrey, accompanied by earnest injunctions to county meetings to send up great delegations to the annual meeting, instructed to carry them through, with assurances to such as they could not fully trust, that “they were opposed to nothing but dough-face-ism.” In the same number of the Liberator in which the resolutions appeared, an unanticipated obstacle to their design was also announced. The President of the Massachusetts Society, though neither peace man nor perfectionist, but one who, individually, considered it his duty to use his elective franchise, took charge of the financial concerns of the Liberator, in conjunction with two of his colleagues of the Board; and in their individual capacity they gave notice to the public of their reasons for so doing. That paper was, in their view identified with the anti-slavery cause in a manner that could be affirmed of no other print, not only from the circumstance of its having been the first, but more strongly, because of the faithfulness, constancy, and disregard of peril and persecution; the excellence of character editorial talent, and intuitive sagacity, of its conductor. And because they thought those qualities never more needed than at that moment, they called upon all who loved the cause to stand by the Liberator. It was signed by Francis Jackson, William Bassett, and Edmund Quincy. Here was an unexpected blow:--A contradiction of calumnies, a financial security, a politician’s attestation to the value of the Liberator, combined in one view, before the eyes of the anti-slavery community. It was done, too, without any claim on the part of the doers, that the Liberator should sink from being the organ of all in the cause who chose to use it, into the mere instrument of a few. This was prophetic of stout resistance to the narrow, exclusive, and enslaving spirit which had so long wrought in secret, to undermine the broad foundations of the anti-slavery cause. The shrewd proverb of the lookers-on during revolutions, says that “Treason never prospers: what’s the reason? When it prospers, men don’t _call_ it treason.” Happily for the slave, at this critical instant, there were not wanting men to _call_ out “Treason!” against this whole procedure, irrespective of its probable success, in that soul-cleaving and victorious voice which carries with it instant conviction. It is interesting to observe the course of men in peculiar and trying times, and to notice the strong contrasts of character and conduct that such times present.