Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[261] showed the hostile animus of the New York Executive Committee, and prepared the abolitionists of the East for the speedy development of the breach which already existed between it and the Massachusetts Board of Managers.

The year opened, in fact, on a serious but as yet private difference between these two bodies as to their financial relations. Soon after the Parent Society was founded,¹ difficulties began to arise, as to collections and credits, between them and their auxiliaries, caused naturally by the overlapping of agencies, State and national, and the confusion of accounts both in giving and receiving moneys on behalf of the cause. These became so intolerable that at the New York anniversary in May, 1838, the American Society recommended that each State work² its own territory, and guarantee stated payments to the national treasury, on condition that the American agents should not interfere except to cooperate with the local organization. This was agreed to by the Massachusetts Board, which made a pledge of $10,000, payable in instalments—a sum only slightly below that already paid in for the year ending May 1, 1838, which surpassed the contribution from New York State, was five times as large as that from Ohio (with many more societies to draw from), and more than all the rest of New England, with Pennsylvania into the bargain. Owing to various causes, however, the instalment of November 1 was in arrear, and the Massachusetts Board was summoned by the Executive Committee to recede at once from the contract and throw open their territory to American collectors. To this the Board objected, alleging old³ embarrassments that would return in force, and protesting against the centralization of the anti-slavery direction. No body of men, they said, ought to be entrusted with exclusive charge of the enterprise. They would cast no reflection on the present Executive Committee, but its successors might be of a very different stripe. The politician and the sectary were lying in wait to capture the