This course they rightly dreaded more than the other, and to defeat it the managers of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society requested a public hearing of the committee, which was granted.

On March 4th Garrison and many of the anti-slavery leaders appeared before the committee, with a carefully planned programme of procedure.

To each of the selected speakers was assigned a distinct phase of the great subject of discussion before the committee.

Samuel J.May was appointed to open with an exposition of the anti-slavery movement and of the object and motives of its founders; Garrison to follow with an exhibition of the pacific character of the agitation as contained in official publications whereby forgiveness, submission, and non-resistance were steadily inculcated; Ellis Gray Loring was next to demonstrate the perfectly constitutional character of the agitation.

The Abolitionists had in no wise contravened the National or the State Constitution, either in letter or spirit, and so on through the programme.