“Resolved, that the formation of a national society is essential to the complete regeneration of public sentiment on the subject of slavery; and that the Board of Managers of the New England Society be authorized to call a national meeting of the friends of abolition, for the purpose of organizing such a society.” Their success was thus announced in the annual report of 1835:-- “In consequence of the formation of the American Society, and of the design contemplated to form State Societies in the New England States, which has been already accomplished in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the operations of the New England Society during the past year have been very much confined to Massachusetts, and hereafter it will be _only_ a State Society.” These enlarged souls thought it no humiliation to take a lower seat. Their object was Liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, and not the establishment of a powerful institution, of which _they_ should have the control. They go on to say,-- “Though the comparative importance of this association has, owing to the causes just mentioned, been in some measure diminished, yet its zeal, activity and numbers are unimpaired, while its principles are spreading with unexampled rapidity.” We find them abjuring every thought of control, jurisdiction, centralization and monopoly of means and power. Voluntarily taking what in the apprehension of many would be a lower seat, they assumed the name of the Massachusetts, instead of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. The plan of a national organization, with its various component parts, from state and county to town and parish societies, was skilfully planned, and its execution commenced with great spirit. There was no difficulty in obtaining funds for the use of the Executive Committee of this national association, as _all_ the abolitionists were its members, and their confidence in the men they had selected to form this Committee, was very great. Unlike the parent and pioneer Committee, it numbered among its members men of wealth; and their liberality enabled them to send into the field numbers of able financial and lecturing agents. At the State gatherings and New England Conventions, these agents were wont to take donations and pledges, which Massachusetts abolitionists, with their characteristic disinterestedness, were anxious to make, that the central committee might be supplied, even though it drained the State Society of its resources.