After an hour’s general conversation upon the importance of the document to be prepared, and the character it ought to possess, we agreed that each one present should, in his turn, utter the sentiment or announce the purpose which he thought ought to be given in the declaration. This was done, and revealed great unanimity, and at the same time not a little individuality of opinion among the members. I cannot now recall many of the suggestions thrown out. One, however, was so pregnant that it contained the text and the substance of several of my lectures afterwards. “I wish,” said Elizur Wright, “that the difference between our purpose and that of the Colonization Society should be explicitly stated. We mean to exterminate _slavery_ from our country with its accursed influences. The Colonizationists aim only to _get rid of the slaves_ so soon as they become free. Their plan is unrighteous, cruel, and impracticable withal. Our plan needs but a good will, a right spirit amongst the white people, to accomplish it.” After a session of more than two hours thus spent a sub-committee of three was appointed to prepare a draft of the proposed declaration, to be reported next morning at nine o’clock to the whole committee, in the room adjoining the hall of the Convention. William L. Garrison, John G. Whittier, and myself composed that sub-committee. We immediately repaired to the house of Mr. James McCrummel, a colored gentleman, with whom Mr. Garrison was at home; and there, after a half-hour’s consultation, it was of course determined that Mr. Garrison, our Coryphæus, should write the document, in which were to be set before our country and the world “the sentiments and purposes of the American Antislavery Society.” We left him about ten o’clock, agreeing to come to him again next morning at eight.