The friends of the slave and of free discussion in Philadelphia feeling the need of a place where they might assemble for the exercise of the right of free speech in a city which denied to them the use of its halls and meeting-houses, determined to erect for themselves such a place.

At a cost of forty thousand dollars they built Pennsylvania Hall and devoted it to "Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and Independence." Two days after the dedicatory exercises were had the hall was occupied by the annual convention of American Anti-Slavery Women.

On the evening of May 16th, Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman, Angelina Grimke Weld and others addressed the convention in the new temple of freedom.

The scenes of that evening have been graphically described by the first speaker as follows: "The floor of the hall was densely crowded with women, some of the noblest specimens of our race, a large proportion of whom were Quakers.

The side aisles and spacious galleries were as thickly filled with men.