as general agent and secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society, and in the midst of a busy ministerial career devoted to many
causes, achieved a notable reputation as a reformer and friend of the
slave. Others who joined Garrison's standard were John Greenleaf
Whittier, whose poems Garrison was the first to publish in the New-
buryport Herald, and who became an early and devoted friend,
though the two later differed on the question of political action; Ellis
Gray Loring, a rising young Boston lawyer of a socially prominent
family, who took his place as a leader in the Massachusetts Anti-
Slavery Society; Oliver Johnson, born and raised in Vermont, who
was first influenced by Garrison Journal of the Times, and who later,
in 1831, as editor of the Christian Soldier -- with an office in the
building in which the Liberator was published -- became his devoted
friend, collaborator and the author of his first full-length biography;
Arnold Buffum, a Quaker hat manufacturer who became the first
president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, although he later
left the Garrison camp for political action with the Liberty Party; and
David and Lydia Maria Child, husband and wife, the former a
journalist, teacher, lawyer and for a short period a member of the
Massachusetts legislature, the latter a popular novelist and publicist
whose An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Afri-
cans, published in July 1833, gained many new converts for the anti-
slavery movement.

The first organizational result of Garrison's teaching was the for-
mation, after several meetings, of the New England Anti-Slavery
Society on January 6, 1832. Its constitution, adopted on that day,
was the first to avow the principle of immediate emancipation. Among
the twelve who signed it were Garrison, Johnson, Buffum, Knapp
and Joshua Coffin. Although David Child, Sewall and Loring at first
objected to the inclusion of the immediate emancipation clause on
grounds of expediency and refused to sign, they did so soon after
and assumed leading posts in the organization.

Of great significance to the cause was the publication in 1832 of
a pamphlet by Garrison entitled "Thoughts on African Colonization",
which exposed the pretensions of the American Colonization Society
and condemned it out of the writings and speeches of its leaders as
an anti-Negro, pro-slavery organization. The pamphlet had a wide
impact, influencing such men as Elizur Wright, Jr. and Beriah Green,
two professors at Western Reserve College who were later to play

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