se or
neutral colors, but beneath the red flag of open and determined
hostility to slavery. It should be a sign which no one could possibly
mistake. The first meeting was held at the office of Samuel E. Sewall,
November 13, 1831. At the third meeting, convened New Year's evening of
1832, which was the first anniversary of the publication of the
_Liberator_, the work of organization was finished, with a single
important exception, viz., the adoption of the preamble to the
constitution. The character of the preamble would fix the character of
the society. Therefore that which was properly first was made to come
last. The fourth meeting took place on the night of January 6th in the
African Baptist Church on what was then Belknap but now known as Joy
street. The young leader and fourteen of his followers met that evening
in the school-room for colored children, situated under the auditorium
of the church. They could hardly have fallen upon a more obscure or
despised place for the consummation of their enterprise in the city of
Boston than was this selfsame negro church and school-room. The weather
added an ever memorable night to the opprobrium of the spot. A fierce
northeaster accompanied with "snow, rain, and hail in equal proportions"
was roaring and careering through the city's streets. To an eye-witness,
Oliver Johnson, "it almost seemed as if Nature was frowning upon the new
effort to abolish slavery; but," he added, "the spirits of the little
company rose superior to all external circumstances."

If there was strife of the elements without, neither was there sweet
accord within among brethren. "The spirits of the little company" may
have risen superior to the weather, but they did not rise superior to
the preamble, with the principle of immediatism incorporated in it.
Eleven stood by the leader and made it the chief of the corner of the
new society, while three, Messrs. Loring, Sewall, and Child, refused to
sign the Constitution and parted sorrowfully from the small band of the
New England Anti-Slavery Society. But the separation was only temporary,
for each returned to the side of the reformer, and proved his loyalty
and valor in the trying years which followed.

The preamble which was the bone of so much contention declared that:
"We, the undersigned, hold that every person, of full age and sane mind,
has a right to immediate freedom from personal bondage of whatsoever
kind, unless imposed by the sentence of the l