The New England Non-Resistance Society was founded at a special peace convention organized by William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...

, in Boston on September 1838. It was one of the more radical of the many organizations he founded, adopting a Declaration of Sentiments

Declaration of Sentiments

The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men, 100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York, now known as the Seneca Falls Convention...

 of which he was the principal author, pledging themselves to deny the validity of social distinctions based on race, nationality or gender", refusing obedience to human governments, and opposing even individual acts of self defense.

The declaration was signed by 44 people, of whom 20 were women. and Maria Chapman became the editor of its publication, The Non-Resistant , which started publication in 1839. The first annual meeting was held in Philadelphia, Sept 24-27, 1839.

The organization has been considered to be a "relatively exclusive vehicle of the radical [Boston] upper class"