After some discussion between the members of the committee Mr. Lucas withdrew his objection, and we were allowed to proceed. I commenced, being the General Agent of the Society, and gave a sketch of the origin, the organization, and progress of the abolition enterprise,--stating distinctly our purpose and the instrumentalities by which we intended to accomplish it. I laid before the committee copies of our newspapers, reports, and tracts,--especially the constitutions of several State and County Antislavery Societies, and more especially the report of the convention that met in Philadelphia, in December 1833, and organized the American Antislavery Society, and issued a declaration of sentiments and purposes. All these documents, I insisted, would make it plain to the committee that we were endeavoring to effect the abolition of slavery by moral means,--not by rousing the enslaved to insurrection, but by working such changes in the public sentiment of the nation respecting the cruelty and wickedness of our slave system, that strong, earnest remonstrances would be sent from the Legislature, and still more from the ecclesiastical bodies in all the free States to corresponding bodies in the slave States, imploring them to consider the awful iniquity of making merchandise of fellow-men, and treating them like domesticated brutes; at the same time offering to co-operate with them and share generously in the expense of abolishing slavery, and raising their bondmen to the condition and privileges of the free.