"Go on!" was the cry on the other. For a moment it seemed as if violence would follow; and two friends of the speaker, George Bond, Esq., and Hon. William Sturgis, came to his side at the front of the platform. They were met with the demands of "Phillips or nobody!" "Make him take back 'recreant: "he sha'n't go on till he takes it back!” Mr. Sturgis raised his hand to the audience, and the din was hushed. "I did not come here to take any part in this discussion," he said, "nor do I intend to: but I do entreat you, fellow-citizens, by every thing you hold sacred; I conjure you by every association connected with this hall, consecrated by our fathers to freedom of discussion, that you listen to every man who addresses you in a decorous manner." Unmoved from his position, unabashed by the terrors of the hour, the young man whose voice had enkindled such mighty wrath, resumed his speaking: "Fellow-citizens [said he], I cannot take back my words. Surely the attorney-general, so long and well known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against one so young as I am,- my voice never before heard within these walls!" He closed his speech with the declaration that— "When liberty was in danger, Faneuil Hall had the right, and it was her duty, to strike the key-note for the Union, that the passage of the resolutions, in spite of the opposition led by the attorney-general, will show more decidedly the deep indignation with which Boston regards this outrage." By this brave and brilliant utterance, which transcended the most sanguine expectations of the few friends who intimately knew his force of eloquence, and which caused the old "Cradle of Liberty" to echo as never before to exalting and ennobling sentiments, the orator WENDELL PHILLIPS was born. Such were the events of one short month. The martyrdom of Lovejoy caused Phillips to consecrate culture, learning, and zeal to the advocacy of human rights, and to the denunciation of the wrongs of the oppressed. It placed him also among the foremost and most popular American orators. To his fervid and indignant eloquence, even Attorney-Gen. Austin stands indebted; for it alone will preserve his name to the latest posterity as that of one of the most brutal assailants of the dignity of man. The meeting in Faneuil Hall was dispersed. The multitude went home impressed, but not, as a majority, convinced. The virus of slavery had taken deep root; and it was hard not to believe, that as Hubbard Winslow, a Boston Congregational clergyman, expressed it a month previous in his Thanksgiving discourse, “the unchristian principles and measures" of the Abolitionists did not tend to fill the land "with violence and blood." A few persons foresaw, however, in the events of the hour, a new revelation of the magnitude and serious character of the contest on which they had entered. CHAPTER VI. PHILLIPS AN ABOLITIONIST. MARRIAGE. - Phillips's Aspirations. - Speech at New Bedford. The LyceumLecture System. - Phillips delivers his First Lecture.-"The Lost Arts." Joins the New-England Anti-Slavery Society. — Status of the Colored People. - The Chapmans. - Ann Terry Greene. — Phillips falls in Love. Marriage. His Domestic Life. The Faithful Wife. - Recollections of Mr. Buckingham. - Phillips's First Anti-Slavery Lecture. — Recollections of Edwin Thompson. "The mightiest intellects of the race, from Plato down to the present time; some of the rarest minds of Germany, France, and England, - have successively yielded their assent to the fact that woman is, not perhaps identically, but equally, endowed with man in all intellectual capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt, -doubt, perhaps, because they fear a fair field: 'He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch "When Infinite Wisdom established the rules of right and honesty, he saw to it that justice should be always the highest expediency."-PHILLIPS. IN N the crowded thoroughfares of Boston, Wendell Phillips found the mission of his manhood. The Garrison mob gave a new bent to his thoughts. At the age of twenty-four he allowed himself to drift into the great struggle which was impending over the republic. From that hour he became interested in the cause of human rights. Previous to this time he had played the rôle of a struggling lawyer, — not, indeed, struggling for bread and butter, but for clients and recognition. Fresh from college, and well knowing of what he was made, and of what he was capable, he had looked forward to a public life, and cherished an ambition to hold a public office. But now he had chosen a different field: he had gone on a different line. After his graduation Mr. Phillips was invited to speak at New Bedford, Mass. Of this event, Mr. Charles T. Congdon furnishes the following interesting recollections: "Massachusetts [he states], in earlier times, was hardly ever in accord with the General Government; but its opposition to the Jackson and Van Buren administrations was particularly bitter, and persistently unbroken. It was intensified by traditions of old quarrels with the Washington powers, which, though long allayed, had still left a root of bitterness. There was a trace of this in the first address which I heard Mr. Wendell Phillips deliver, Fourth-of-July oration given in our town (New Bedford) just after he left the university. a "When he stood up in the pulpit, I thought him the handsomest man I had ever seen: when he began to speak, his elocution seemed the most beautiful to which I had ever listened; and I was sure that the orations of Cicero, which I had just begun to thumb, were given to the S.P.Q.R. with much smaller effect. Even then the great orator of the Abolitionists was an admirable speaker; nor did he, though scarcely past his majority, lack the grace and force of language with which the whole country has since become familiar. "There was, besides, a fresh and youthful enthusiasm, which could not last forever. He had then all the pride of State feeling, which he had probably inherited from his Federal ancestors; and I remember one expression which fell from his lips, which, in the light of his subsequent career, is a little curious. He was speaking of the political history of the State, and of its frequent isolation in politics, and electrified us all by exclaiming, 'The Star of Massachusetts has shone the brighter for shining alone!' I suspect that even then Mr. Phillips's Federal relations were in rather an uncertain condition."1 In 1830 the lyceum-lecture system, which has played so important and conspicuous a part in the political and intellectual education of the masses, was started by Horace Mann, Josiah Holbrook, Rev. Dr. Allen, Hon. Amasa Walker, George B. Emerson, and others. Mr. Phillips was among the first to take part in the movement, and as early as 1836 he delivered his first lecture. He selected his subjects from the realm of natural science, of which, perhaps, he was more fond than of the law; and, every winter succeeding, his name appears as one of the lecturers in the stated courses of the day. His lecture on "The Lost Arts," which was probably the most popular and most charming lecture for the people ever delivered in this country, began its career in 1838. After he had joined the anti-slavery society, in 1837, 1 Reminiscences of a Journalist, by Charles T. Congdon, Boston, 1880. |