"One of the principles laid down in the constitution of the American Society, and a most important one as limiting its operations, is that by the Constitution of the United States Congress has no right to legislate for the abolition of slavery in the several States in which it exists. Yet a gentleman was in 1838 chosen by the society one of its officers after having both in print and in the presence of the society denied this doctrine and contended that it was the duty of abolitionists to petition Congress to pass a law for the immediate emancipation of all the slaves in the United States. The expulsion of this gentleman from the society was in my opinion required by the respect it owed itself, and by the good faith it owed both to the public and to its members. The course pursued was an emphatic declaration on the part of the society that its professed principles, however useful they might be in conciliating public confidence and in acquiring funds, were by no means binding on its members. Having sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and regarding the proposed mode of emancipation a most palpable violation of it, and seeing that the avowed principles of the society were in fact no security for its conformity to them in its conduct, I then determined never again to take a part in its meetings or in those of its auxiliaries. Subsequent events have given me no cause to regret this determination. "One of the great objects for which the American Society was avowedly formed was to effect the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and of the American slave-trade by Congressional legislation. Yet men belonging to the society, and even some of its officers, are now publicly maintaining that all compulsory laws are sinful, and of course that it would be a usurpation of the divine prerogative for Congress to suppress by penal law the abomination of slavery in the capital of the republic, and the nefarious traffic in human flesh of which the capital is the great depot. I cannot as an abolitionist act with those who reprobate all enactments, not merely for the abolition of slavery where it exists, but even for preventing its re-establishment on soil from which it has been extirpated; and also for protecting the poor coloured man, his wife, and children from the merciless kidnapper. "Certainly the founders of the society did not intend to effect by it any alteration in the social relations of the sexes; and not the most distant hint of such a design can be found in the Constitution; yet it is in vain to deny that an attempt is now making to render antislavery societies instrumental in advancing certain theories respecting the rights of women.