. The business committee with
Henry Highland Garnet, Chairman, Charles B. Ray, Leonard Collins,
Massachusetts, Willis A. Hodges, N. Y., and Lewis Hayden, then of Michigan.

There were 67 delegates. From New York, 44; Massachusetts, 15;
Connecticut, 2; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky
and Michigan, 1 each.

The presence of one delegate, Benjamin Weeden, from a large constituency,
Northampton, Mass., whose credentials stated the fact that a large number
of white citizens sympathizing with the objects of the call had formerly
expressed their endorsement of the movement, was a signal for hearty
applause.

A most spirited discussion arose on the report of the Committee of
Education as to the expediency of the establishment of a college for
colored young men, which was discussed pro and con by arguments that can
not be surpassed even after a lapse of more than half a century. The
report gives unstinted praise to the chairman of the committee for his
scholarly style, his choice diction, his grace of manner, and this
statement excites no surprise when we learn that this chairman was
Alexander Crummell.

The next year, September 6, 1848, between sixty and seventy delegates
assembled at Cleveland, Ohio, in the National Convention, the sessions
alternating between the Court House and the Tabernacle. Frederick Douglass
was chosen President, John Jones of Illinois, Allen Jones of Ohio, Thomas
Johnson of Michigan and Abner Francis of New York, were Vice Presidents,
William Howard Day was the Secretary, with William H. Burnham and Justin
Hollin, Assistants. At the head of the business committee stood Martin R.
Delaney, and with him as associates, Charles H. Langston, David Jenkins,
Henry Bibb, T. W. Tucker, W. H. Topp, Thomas Bird, J. P. Watson and J.
Malvin. The line of policy was not deflected. As in previous conventions,
education was encouraged, the importance of statistical information stated
and temperance societies urged.

As showing the representative character of the delegates, the diversity of
occupations, employment and the professions followed, the fact was
developed that there were printers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers,
engineers, dentists, gunsmiths, editors, tailors, merchants, wheelwrights,
painters, farmers, physicians, plasterers, masons, college students,
clergymen, barbers, hairdressers, laborers, coopers, livery stable
keepers, bath house keepers and grocers among the members