 By most accounts, the community's opposition to the death penalty was solid and widespread.Meetings were held in several Massachusetts cities and towns in support of Washington Goode with a committee being appointed by the Massachusetts Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment to advocate on his behalf.Those volunteering to serve on the committee included his attorneys Aspinwall and Hodges, as well as Wendell Phillips, Walter Channing, Samuel May, Robert Rantoul, Jr., James Freeman Clarke and Frederick Douglass, among other politicians, ministers and reformers.