In spite, however, of the power crystallized in the Constitution, the
moral movement that had set in against slavery still held its ground,
and it was destined never wholly to languish until slavery ceased
altogether to exist in the United States. Throughout the century the
Quakers continued their good work; in the generation before the war John
Woolman of New Jersey traveled in the Southern colonies preaching that
"the practice of continuing slavery is not right"; and Anthony Benezet
opened in Philadelphia a school for Negroes which he himself taught
without remuneration, and otherwise influenced Pennsylvania to begin the
work of emancipation. In general the Quakers conducted their campaign
along the lines on which they were most likely to succeed, attacking
the slave-trade first of all but more and more making an appeal to
the central government; and the first Abolition Society, organized in
Pennsylvania in 1775 and consisting mainly of Quakers, had for its
original object merely the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in
bondage.[1] The organization was forced to suspend its work in the
course of the war, but in 1784 it renewed its meetings, and men of other
denominations than the Quakers now joined in greater numbers. In 1787
the society was formally reorganized as "The Pennsylvania Society
for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes
unlawfully held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the
African Race." Benjamin Franklin was elected president and there was
adopted a constitution which was more and more to serve as a model for
similar societies in the neighboring states.

[Footnote 1: Locke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 97.]

Four years later, by 1791, there were in the country as many as
twelve abolition societies, and these represented all the states from
Massachusetts to Virginia, with the exception of New Jersey, where a