executive committee were such men as Judge Jay, Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
La Roy Sunderland, Simeon S. Jocelyn, (the early laborer on behalf of
the free colored people,) Joshua Leavitt, Henry B. Stanton, and the late
Dr. Follen, a German political refugee, equally distinguished for his
literary attainments and his love of liberty.

Until the last three or four years, entire union of purpose and concert
of action existed among the American abolitionists. This harmony was
first disturbed by the course pursued in the Boston Liberator. The
editor of that paper, William Lloyd Garrison, whose early anti-slavery
career has already been alluded to, and who was deservedly honored by
the great body of the abolitionists, for his sufferings in their cause,
and for his triumphant exposure of the oppressive tendencies of the
colonization scheme, had always refused to share with any society or
committee, the editorial responsibility of his journal. About the time
referred to, several pieces were inserted in the _Liberator_,
questioning the generally received opinions on the first day of the
week. These were followed by others on other subjects, and he continued
to keep his readers apprised of the new views of ethics and theology,
which from time to time were presented to his own mind. His paper was
not the special organ of any anti-slavery society, yet it was regarded,
by general consent of the friends and enemies of the cause, as the organ
of the anti-slavery movement. The discussion in its columns of new and
startling doctrines, on subjects unconnected with slavery, occasioned
many of the former much uneasiness and embarrassment, while it furnished
the latter with new excuses for their enmity, and with the pretence that
under cover of _abolition_, lurked a design of assailing institutions
and opinions justly held in regard throughout the Christian world.

In the summer of 1837, Sarah and Angelina Grimke visited New England for