Garrison could not abandon his position, wherefore in due time Loring, Child, and Sewall surrendered theirs.

Finely has Lowell expressed this righteous stubbornness, and steadfastness to principle in three stanzas of his poem entitled, "The Day of Small Things," and which have such an obvious lesson for our own times that I shall venture to quote them in this place: "Who is it will not dare himself to trust?
Who is it hath not strength to stand alone?
Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST?
He and his works, like sand from earth are blown.
"Men of a thousand shifts and wiles look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world! See the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn! "Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will ?" The history of the making of this first society is an interesting story.
There were four meetings in all before it was found possible to complete the work of its organization.

These meetings extended over a space of nearly three months, so obstinate were a minority against committing the proposed society to the principle of immediate emancipation.

The very name which was to be given to the association provoked debate and disagreement.

Some were for christening it "Philo-African," while Garrison would no such milk-and-water title, but one which expressed distinctly and graphically the real character of the organization, viz., "New England Anti-Slavery Society." He would sail under no false or neutral colors, but beneath the red flag of open and determined hostility to slavery.