It is the old story of the box of evils.

Beginnings must be avoided, else if one evil escapes, others will follow.

The anti-slavery Pandora had let out one little imp of discord and many big and little imps were incontinently following.
Against all of the new ideas except one, viz., the idea of anti-slavery political action, the New York leadership, speaking broadly, had opposed itself.

But as if by some strange perversity of fate, this particular new idea was the only one of the new ideas to which the Boston leadership did not take kindly.

It became in time as the very apple of the eye to the management of the National Society.