Arthur Tappan was
elected President of the national organization, and William Green, Jr.,
Treasurer. Elizur Wright, Jr., was chosen Secretary of Domestic
Correspondence, William Lloyd Garrison Secretary of Foreign
Correspondence, and Abraham L. Cox Recording Secretary. Besides these
officers there were a Board of Management and a number of
Vice-Presidents selected. For three days the hearts of the delegates
burned within them toward white-browed Duty and the master, Justice, who
stood in their midst and talked with divine accents to their spirits of
how men were enslaved and cruelly oppressed by men, their own brothers,
and how the cry of these bondmen came up to them for help. And with one
accord there fell upon the delegates a pang and pity, an uplifting,
impelling sense of 'woe unto us' if we withhold from our brethren in
bonds the help required of us. This rising tide of emotion and
enthusiasm gathering mass at each sitting of the convention, culminated
during the several readings of the Declaration of Sentiments. And when
on the third day Beriah Green brought the congress to a close in a
valedictory address of apostolic power and grandeur, and with a prayer
so sweet, so fervent, and strong as to melt all hearts, the pent-up
waters of the reform was ready to hurl themselves into an agitation the
like of which had never before, nor has since, been seen or felt in the
Union.
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