Wendell Phillips, 1811-1884

[Mentioned in Miscellaneous Writings, p. 245, and Pulpit and Press, p. 6]

In 1835, upon looking out of his law office window, Wendell Phillips was shocked to see a mob dragging Garrison, the abolitionist, through the street. Equally shocking to him was the fact that friends from the same aristocratic background as his own condoned it. Phillips, son of the first mayor of Boston under the city charter, had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1834 and the following year had been admitted to the Suffolk County bar.

To protest the shooting of a clergyman in Alton, Illinois, for defending his printing press against a proslavery mob, a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, in 1837. Here the attorney general of Massachusetts compared the Alton rioters to the Boston patriots who had thrown the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. These comparisons roused Phillips, who found his way to the platform and spoke with such clearness, logic, and moral conviction that his hearers realized that the abolitionists had a powerful, new orator. From that hour Phillips was identified with the radical abolitionists.

Some time in 1838 Phillips decided to give up his profession. He worked closely with Garrison in the Anti-Slavery Society and became one of the most sought-after lecturers of his time. Although he earned between ten and fifteen thousands dollars a year, he never accepted any compensation for his antislavery work.

Phillips' unshakable belief in the principle of human equality found further expression in his support of equal rights for women, freedom for Ireland, justice for the American Indian, and fighting for social reforms. With the disbanding of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1870, the great agitator espoused the workingmen's cause. Advocating an eight-hour day and the union, he eschewed the use of violence and counseled, "What is gained by argument is gained forever."

In his Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard in 1881, Phillips rebuked American learning for its lack of social responsibility. His oratory was still as great as when Emerson said of it, "The whole air was full of splendors."

Phillips was a familiar figure on Boston Common. His expression of gentleness and serenity made it easy for children to ask him for his autograph and for the needy to ask for charity. No one was ever refused by this New England gentleman.

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