"The society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of colour, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that thus they may _according to their intellectual and moral worth_ share an equality with the whites of civil and religious privileges; but this society will never in any way countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force." Notwithstanding the distinct and moderate language in which the society set forth its lawful objects, pro-slavery prejudice was aroused to violent opposition. A week later a meeting was called to protest against the "reckless agitations of the abolitionists." Theodore Frelinghuysen, United States Senator from New Jersey, declared that "nine tenths of the horrors of slavery were imaginary," that "the crusade of abolition" was "the poetry of philanthropy," that emancipationists were "seeking to dissolve the Union." Chancellor Walworth came down from Albany to say that they were "reckless incendiaries" and their efforts unconstitutional. David B. Ogden declared the doctrine of immediate emancipation to be "a palpable and direct nullification of the Constitution." On the 29th of October, 1833, a circular invitation was addressed to Judge Jay and others to attend a convention at Philadelphia on the 4th December to form a National Antislavery Society. This step was taken in concurrence with the views of the friends of immediate emancipation in Boston, Providence, New York, and Philadelphia. Among the motives for organizing such a society without delay it was argued that union is strength; that the advocates of the immediate abolition of slavery, though comparatively few and much scattered, were many in the aggregate, and could act, when combined, with irresistible power; that the cause was urgent, public expectation excited, its friends to some extent committed to such a movement during the present year; that they had the example of similar organizations, which, though feeble and condemned by public opinion in the outset, had speedily risen to great influence, and had been the means under God of immense benefit to the human race, especially in the case of the National Antislavery Society of Great Britain, and of the American Temperance Society. The invitation was signed by a committee consisting of Arthur Tappan, Joshua Leavitt, and Elizur Wright, Jr., all officers of the New York Antislavery Society. At the same time Judge Jay received a letter from Rev. Samuel J. May urging him to be present. "This is a cause," wrote May, "in which our wisest and best and most prudent men ought to engage. There never has been in our country so great a demand for the exertions of true patriots and real Christians.... Let me beg of you to be there, at the convention. I have heard the hope that you will be there expressed most fervently by many."