Xuma responded very angrily and sarcastically after reading what he called their "high-learned" manifesto, which explicitly criticized the ANC's failure to advance the national cause, as well as its deficiencies in organisation and constitution, and its "erratic policy of yielding to oppression, regarding itself as a body of gentlemen with clean hands." Xuma rounded on the deputation for usurping the authority of the ANC national executive, but refrained from criticizing publicly a cause he had publicly championed. Thus outmaneuvered, he gave the ANC Youth League his blessing, having secured an agreement that the ANC itself would remain the dominant body