If you could obtain but six signatures to such a petition in only one
state, I would say, send up that petition, and be not in the least
discouraged.

ANGELINA E. GRIMKÉ,
Appeal to the Christian Women
of the South, 1836.

The agents sent out by the American Anti-Slavery Society had done
their work well. The number of abolition societies had more than dou-
bled since 1835 and in 1837, the peak year, reached 1006, with a
membership of more than 100,000. ¹ Success and growth brought in-
novations in method, a change of emphasis, decentralization and, even-
tually, a most serious organizational crisis.

Local societies spread the antislavery message through three princi-
pal means: meetings with guest speakers, furnished by state and na-
tional leadership, the sale of tracts and pamphlets provided by the
national society, and the circulation of petitions. There was also a pro-
liferation of state and county antislavery papers, which eked out a pre-
carious existence. The effect of meetings was, of course, purely local.
The antislavery press suffered from small circulation, which was gen-
erally restricted to those already converted. It reached a wider public
only because the general press frequently reprinted abolitionist articles,
even in distorted form, in order to attack and refute them.

Tracts and pamphlets had proved disappointing as a method of reach-
ing a wide audience. With a very few exceptions, of which American
Slavery As It Is was the outstanding example, they were haphazardly
used and there was no telling how effective they were. Even when

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