The thirteenth meeting in 1827 was a rather important one. It sent the usual memorials to Congress, legislature of Tennessee, and to the churches of the country.[22] It made expulsion a penalty for aiding slaves to escape. The branch organizations were to try those accused of misconduct. This regulation indicates pernicious activities on the part of some members of the society. This meeting was noted for an address made by Thomas Doane in which he made a very serious criticism of slavery. He said: Slavery is unfriendly to a genuine course of agriculture, turning in most cases the fair and fertile face of nature into barren sterility. It is the bane of manufacturing enterprise and internal improvements; injurious to mechanical prosperity; oppressive and degrading to the poor and laboring classes of the white population that live in its vicinity; the death of religion; and finally, it is a volcano in disguise, and dangerous to the safety and happiness of any government on earth when it is tolerated.[23] This convention also appointed a committee of which James Jones was chairman to prepare a report to the American Convention. Jones, in this report, expressed primarily his own feelings and showed his earnestness as one of the greatest anti-slavery leaders of his time. He urged religious and benevolent societies and all friends of freedom throughout the Union to join in petitioning Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and to use its power of regulating interstate commerce to suppress the interstate slave traffic. “It is time,” he said, “for people to be aroused to their duty, and ask their rulers to abolish such things in plain, explicit terms.”[24] Jones not only saw the injury that slavery was causing to society, socially, economically, and politically, but he also foresaw what the final catastrophe would be unless some constructive policy of abolition was instituted for the nation. He said in a letter in 1830 to Benjamin Lundy: “For if Congress will not listen to the voice of humanity until destruction cometh, I wish posterity to know that some among us now are desirous to have justice done.”[25] Several branches of the society were active in creating sentiment for emancipation by means of public meetings, addresses, and memorials to various organizations. The Jefferson Branch, located in Jefferson County, the seat of the state society, led the work in the local societies. In 1821, in an address delivered before the Jefferson Society, the speaker took the following optimistic attitude toward manumission: