USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 44
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scheme. He was cordially received by Wilberforce, Buxton, and their noble associates; and, as the result of his statements and influence, Wilberforce, and eleven of his most prominent coadjutors, joined in the issue of a protest against the American Colonization Society, whose plans they pronounced delusive, and a hindrance to the abolition of slavery. While in England, through his influence also, Mr. George Thompson, one of the most prominent of the anti-slavery champions in Great Britain. was induced to visit the United States as an anti-slavery lecturer.
Shortly after Mr. Garrison's return to America, " The Ameri- can Anti-Slavery Society" was formed at Philadelphia, upon the principles advocated by him, and the " Declaration of senti- ments" issued by the Society, an elaborate manifesto of its principles, aims and methods, was also prepared by him. Pub- lic interest in the subject had, by this time, deepened into ex- citement, and this, intensified to the highest degree, developed a m bocratic spirit ; so that, for two or three years, the assem- bling of an anti-slavery meeting, almost anywhere in the free States, provoked riotous demonstrations, dangerous alike to property and life. Mr. Thompson (before referred to) arrived here from England, in 1834; but so great was the excitement occasioned by his presence here, that he found it prudent to re- turn across the Atlantic, leaving his promised work unfinished.
In October 1835, a mob, composed of persons who were de- scribed in the journals of the day as " gentlemen of property and standing," broke up a meeting of the Female Anti-Slavery Society, at Boston, and Mr. Garrison, who was announced as one of the speakers of the occasion, was seized and, partially denuded of his clothing, was violently dragged through the streets to City Hall; where, as the only means of saving his life, he was committed to jail by the mayor, on the nominal charge of
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being "a disturber of the peace !" He was, however, released the next day, and sent, under protection of the civic authorities, to a place of safety in the country, leaving pencilled upon the walls of the cell which he had occupied, the following inscription : " William Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon, October, 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of a " respectable and influential" mob, who sought to destroy him, for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine, that all men are created equal, and that all oppression is odious in the sight of God. Hail, Columbia! cheers for the Autocrat of Russia, and Sultan of Turkey ! Reader, let this inscription re- main, till the last slave in this land be loosed from his fetters !"
In the discussion of the peace question which followed these scenes of violence, Mr. Garrison took a prominent part as a champion of non-resistance ; and, in 1838, led the way in the organization of the "New England Non-resistance Society ;" the "Declaration of Sentiments" issued by them, being also his work. About this time, also, arose the question of the rights of women as members of the anti-slavery societies, and Mr. Garrison earnestly advocated their right, if they so wished, to vote, serve on committees, and take part in discussions, on equal footing with men. The American Anti-Slavery Society split upon this question, in 1840; and, in the " World's Anti- Slavery Convention," held during the same year in London, Mr. Garrison, as a delegate from that society, refused to take his seat, because the female delegates from the United States were excluded. During this visit to England, he was invited to Stafford House, by the beautiful and distinguished Duchess of Sutherland, who treated him with marked attention, and at whose request he sat to one of the most eminent artists of the day for his portrait, which was added to the treasures of that palace.
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In 1843, he was chosen president of the society, which office he continued to hold until 1865.
In 1843, a small volume of his "sonnets and other poems" was published; and, in 1846, he made his third visit, on anti- slavery business, to Great Britain. In 1852, appeared a volume of " selections," from his " writings and speeches."
Mr. Garrison has, from the first, kept himself, as an abolition- ist, free from all political or religious complications, or affinities. Believing most thoroughly, as expressed in the motto of the Liberator, that the Constitution of the United States, in its re- lations to slavery, was " a covenant with death and an agree- ment with hell," he has acted with singular and unwavering consistency. It has been well said," that "while everybody else in the United States had something else to conserve, some side issues to make, some points to carry, Garrison and his band had but one thing to say-that American slavery is a sin ; but one thing to do-to preach immediate repentance, and forsaking of sin. They withdrew from every organization which could in any way be supposed to tolerate or hold communion with it, and walked alone, a small, but always active and powerful body. They represented the pure abstract form of every principle as near as it is possible for it to be represented by human frailty."
In 1861, when the war of the rebellion broke out, Mr. Garrison did not for a moment hesitate to throw the whole weight of his intellectual and moral support in favor of the Government, contrary to the course of many of his fellow abolitionists, and of many of the so-called peace-men, who thought that because they could not take up arms in defence of any cause, they could neither acknowledge the constitutional right of the North to enforce obedience to the laws, and sup-
* By Mrs. Stowe, in the Watchman and Reflector, May 24th, 1866.
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press rebellion, nor rejoice in any of its victories. From the very first, Mr. Garrison rejoiced in every triumph of the Federa! arms, as a patriot and a philanthropist; and he foresaw the inevitable disruption of slavery, as he had never expected to see it. In all his criticisms upon the course of the administra- tion, he remembered its grave responsibilities, and placed great faith in the personal integrity of President Lincoln. In April, 1865, at the invitation of Secretary Stanton, he visited Fort Sumter, to attend the celebration of its recapture, and went up also, to Charleston, where he addressed a great gathering of the freedmen, who attended him with flowers on his departure. In May, 1865, at the anniversary meeting, in New York, of the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was president, - after vainly trying to persuade his associates to disband, on the ground that, slavery being abolished, the society became a misnomer, and ceased to have a reason for existing, while for any service yet to be performed for the freedmen, it was far better to work in unison with the great body of loyalists all over the North, than to continue in their hitherto enforced isolation,-he resigned his office, and withdrew from the society.
Partly on the same ground, and partly because the paper had never received adequate support, he discontinued the pub- lication of the " Liberator," in December 1865, at the close of its thirty-fifth volume.
He was chosen one of the vice-presidents of the American Freedman's Union Commission ; and in May, 1867, his health having been impaired by a serious fall, he made a fourth visit to England, and first visit to the Continent, to join his son and married daughter. In London he was complimented with a ban- quet by some of the most distinguished men of the kingdom, including John Bright, John Stuart Mill, the Duke of Argyll
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and Earl Russell, the latter of whom made a handsome apol- ogy for his mistaken utterances during our civil war. At various other places in England and Scotland he was publicly entertained in a similar manner for his connection with the anti-slavery cause, and also with the temperance cause, in America; and, at Edinburgh, the freedom of the city was pre- sented to him by the Lord Provost, an honor never before bestowed upon an American, except Mr. Peabody. At Paris he attended and addressed a World's Anti-Slavery Conference, and returned to America in November, 1867, since which he has resided in Boston. During the same year, also, Mr. Garrison's inestimable services to the cause of humanity were gracefully and heartily acknowledged in the form of a testimonial, amount- ing to about $33,000, raised from the nation at large, by public and private appeals, and presented to him in a strictly private manner.
The letter of the committee who presented this testimonial, contains a grateful tribute to the unflagging zeal of Mr. Gar- rison in the cause of freedom, and assures him of the truly national character of the testimonial, coming from every quarter of the country, and from all classes of people. Mr. Garrison, in his reply, writes as follows :- " Little, indeed, did I know or anticipate how prolonged, or how virulent would be the struggle when I lifted up the standard of immediate emanci- pation, and essayed to rouse the nation to a sense of its guilt and danger. But, having put my hand to the plow, how could I look back ? For, in a cause so righteous, I could not doubt that, having turned the furrows, if I sowed it in tears, I should one day reap in joy. But, whether permitted to live to witness the abolition of slavery or not, I felt assured that, as I demanded nothing that was not clearly in accordance with justice and
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humanity, some time or other, if remembered at all, I should stand vindicated in the eyes of my countrymen."
In connection with this, we may quote a few paragraphs from a recent letter of this whole-souled pioneer of emanci- pation : "I thank you," says he to an old and valued friend, "for the warm and generous approval of my anti-slavery career, and rejoice with you in the total abolition of slavery, through- out our land. If, as a humble instrumentality, in effecting the overthrow of that nefarious system, I have been promi nent, it has not been of my seeking; for, at the outset, I ex- pected to follow others, not to lead; and certainly, I neither sought nor desired conspicuity. Standing for a time alone under the banner of immediate and unconditional emancipation, I naturally excited the special enmity and wrath of the whole country, as the 'head and front' of abolition offending ; and now that the cause, once so odious, is victorious, and four millions of bondmen have had their fetters broken; it is not very surprising that, in this 'era of good feeling,' my labors and merits are immensely overrated. Others have labored more abundantly, encountered more perils, and endured more privations and sufferings; but every one has been indispensable, in his own place, to bring about the good and glorious result ; and it is not a question of comparison as to who was earliest in the field, or who labored the most efficiently, but one of sympathy for the oppressed, and an earnest desire to see their yoke immediately broken. There should be no boasting on the one hand, nor jealousy on the other. Therefore, while disclaiming any peculiar deserts on my part, I think the 'testimonial,' which has been so unexpectedly raised in approval of my anti-slavery career, will not be viewed by any of my co-laborers as invidious, but rather as symbolizing a common triumph, and a common vindication."
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
OME writer has said, that "oratory is a peculiarly American gift-not that there have not been elsewhere eloquent speakers, who could sway senates at their will-but, in America, public speaking is so universal, and the masses are so intelligent, that the inducements to culti- vate an art, which will enable the speaker to control the listen- ing crowds, are much stronger than in other countries." It is undoubtedly true that there are more examples of brilliant eloquence in the pulpit, at the bar, and on the platform before public assemblies, here than in any other country where the English tongue is spoken ; and, though our composite language may not possess the stateliness of the Castilian, the liquid music of the Italian, or the colloquial brilliancy of the French, there are extant orations in it, which are surpassed in beauty and grandeur by those of no other living tongue.
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There is a tendency among our orators to verbal diffuseness ; their speeches lack condensation, and hence, though they sound well, when delivered ore rotundo, they do not read so well. We miss the vigor, pith, and points which were, in part, supplied by the earnestness of the speaker's delivery. He is, all things considered, the most effective orator, who, with all the graces of manner, voice, and action, utters an address whose every word has been carefully selected, and conveys just the shade of
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meaning intended, neither less nor more, and, at the same time, so combines his words and sentences as to produce the best effect of which the language is capable. It is just the power of fully accomplishing this, which makes Mr. Phillips the finest orator in Christendom. His position, in this respect, is conceded alike by friends and foes.
Some have doubted whether eloquence was a natural or an acquired endowment, and those who inclined to the latter view have adduced the long and painful efforts of Demosthenes ; and, in our own time, of Henry Ward Beecher, to overcome natural difficulties of delivery. We cannot doubt that these men, and many others, have triumphed over great obstacles, in attaining a ready and effective utterance of the great thoughts which were seeking deliverance from the prison-house of the brain; but the eloquence was behind all these obstacles, and it would have vent. It was the gift of God, and however it might be ob- scured at first, by imperfection of voice, by a faltering and hesi- tating tongue, or other impediments of speech, it was there, and must eventually force its way out. Happy those who, like Mr. Phillips, possess naturally all these graces of delivery, and who owe little to the help of art. Mr. Phillips' first public oration, delivered impromptu, possesses all the fine characteristics of his later ones, was delivered with as much fervor and with as pow- erful an effect as any of the thousands since, which have held listening crowds in speechless delight. There was the same careful and apparently instinctive choice of the best words to express his thoughts, the same keen and polished invective, the same system and order in his arrangement, and the same fervid and brilliant peroration. If he has never improved on that eloquent address, delivered now more than thirty years ago, it is because that it was so perfect a production as to leave no room for improvement.
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WENDELL PHILLIPS comes of the best blood of the Puritan and revolutionary stock. A lineal descendant of Rev. George Phillips, an eminent clergyman and scholar, who emigrated to Massachusetts from Norfolk county, England, in 1630, and served as the learned, wise, and zealous pastor of Watertown, Massachusetts, for fourteen years, he numbers, also, among his ancestry, direct or collateral, Samuel Phillips, Jr., Lieutenant- Governor of Massachusetts in 1801-2, and founder of Phillips' academy, Andover; John Phillips, LL.D., the founder and liberal contributor to Phillips' academy, Exeter, New Hamp- shire, Dartmouth college, Phillips' academy, Andover, and Andover Theological seminary ; his honor, William Phillips, Jr., of Boston, also a Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and his father, Hon. John Phillips, who was the first mayor of Boston. Wendell Phillips was born in Boston, November 29, 1811, and after enjoying the advantages of the best schools of his native city, entered Harvard college, where he graduated with high honors, in 1831, and commencing the study of law in the Cambridge law school, received his diploma there in 1833, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1834.
An accomplished scholar, with a far wider range of general culture than is ordinarily possessed by educated young men at the age of twenty-four, and with an intense fastidiousness of taste and thought, which ever made absolute perfection its ideal, Mr. Phillips was in danger, at this time, of becoming a mere purist, a dilettante, frittering away his noble powers on the spelling of a word, or shades of thought too nice to be distin- guished by any common mind, or in some other equally profitless pursuit, which should squander, rather than exercise his great gifts. But he was happily diverted to more profitable and useful labors, by the great events which occurred, just as he came into public life.
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It was the era of the first great anti-slavery excitement. The whole country was in arms at the behest of the slave power, which demanded the putting down of the men who had dared to question its authority. For his attacks on this monster iniquity, William Lloyd Garrison, as we have already seen, was first assailed with the most bitter and abusive language, and afterwards dragged through the streets of Boston by a mob, for his advocacy of the cause of freedom. The people of the North, with but few exceptions, were wedded to the idol of slavery, and were indignant that any man should dare to offend the South, by whose trade they had their gain.
Phillips had witnessed the indignities offered to Garrison, and his cruel persecution for his bold defence of freedom against oppression ; and the old patriotic, freedom-loving blood which had made the Phillipses among the foremost of the patriots of the Revolution, was stirred within him. He avowed himself an abolitionist and co-worker with Garrison in 1836, and in 1839 withdrew from the practice of law because he could not con- scientiously take the oath to support and defend the Constitu- tion of the United States, believing, as he did, that that docu- ment was tainted with complicity with slavery, and hence, as he forcibly expressed it, was "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell."
He threw himself into the front of the battle against slavery, and for thirty years and more has fought oppression; at first with a little but gallant band, abused, hated, threatened, a price set on his head, and the object of all the obloquy and scorn men could visit on him. After years of this strife, in which he and Mr. Garrison were always the standard bearers, there began to be signs of coming success for their principles ; then Phillips always took a long stride forward, and fought on, waiting for the masses to advance. His mind is so constituted that so long as
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there is a possible good to be obtained, an ideal, however vague and shadowy, to be reached, he cannot rest, and if the whole world were to advance to his ideal of to-day, he would be found far beyond in the distance, with aims and hopes and ends yet to be attained.
With how much of suffering and anxiety he has maintained this long struggle, none but himself can ever know. He put aside for it a brilliant future in his profession, and made opposi- tion to slavery the great business of his life. Yet such was his winning eloquence, his vast learning, and his brilliant and versatile powers as a lecturer, that when he could be induced to lecture on any other subject, he drew larger audiences than any other man. He knew the unpopularity of his favorite topic. and shrewdly availed himself of his great abilities to secure for it a hearing. For years, when the lecture com- mittees applied to him to address audiences and asked his terms, his reply was : " If I speak on slavery, nothing : if on any other subject, one hundred dollars."
His first noteworthy speech on slavery was unpremeditated, but its thrilling eloquence told on the audience, nine-tenths of whom were bitterly opposed to him. The occasion was this. In the autumn of 1837, Rev. E. P. Lovejoy had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, and his press broken up, by a mob, mostly from Missouri, on account of the anti-slavery principles he had avowed in his paper. A meeting was called in Boston, by Rev. W. E. Channing and others, to assemble in Faneuil Hall (the use of which was at first denied but finally reluctantly granted), to notice in a suitable manner Mr. Lovejoy's death as a martyr to freedom. After some addresses, a Mr. Austin, attorney- general of Massachusetts, rose and defended, in a very bitter and violent speech, the rioters, declared that Lovejoy came to his death by his own imprudence, and that the utterance of such
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sentiments as he had avowed, ought to be suppressed. Mr. Phillips replied in one of the most eloquent and scathing speeches ever delivered, running a parallel between the conduct of Warren at Bunker Hill, and Lovejoy at Alton, so effective, that the audience, who had, at first, been determined that he should not be permitted to speak, at last greeted him with cheers.
Mr. Phillips was most thoroughly in his element at the anni- versaries of the American Anti-Slavery Society, when, from year to year, he would review the progress made, and hail upon the pro-slavery leaders and partisans such a storm of invective, every sentence polished but keen as a battle axe, that those of them who were present would writhe under it, as if in intense agony. Year after year, such men as Isaiah Rynders and his comrades, would attempt to break up these anniversaries by mob-violence, and often was Mr. Phillips' life threatened ; but he could not be put down. There was that power and dignity in his manner, which would quell and silence the fiercest mob; and when they were hushed, he would take the opportunity to say his severest and bitterest words.
No man living excels him in power over an audience. The writer once listened to his lecture on Toussaint L'Ouverture, and was surprised to see a man in the audience well known as a Democrat and a strongly pro-slavery partisan, applauding him to the echo, and most vigorously in those passages which were most intensely anti-slavery, and most decided in their depre- ciation of the white general (Napoleon), as compared with the negro (Toussaint).
At the close of the lecture, falling in with this Democrat, the writer could not avoid saying to him, "How happens it that you, an 'atense pro-slavery man, should applaud and enjoy the hard hits and telling blows of Wendell Phillips against slavery ?" "Oh !" was the reply, " of course I don't believe a
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word he says, but he did say it so well and so neatly, that 1 couldn't help applauding.". Nothing but genuine eloquence of the highest character could have produced such an effect as that.
When Mr. Delane, of the London Times, was in this country, a friend asked him to go with him and hear Wendell Phillips; he declined at first, saying that he had no wish to listen to a foaming abolition lecture ; but at the urgent request of his friend finally consented. The lecture closed, his friend, who had watched his countenance during the lecture, asked how he was pleased. " Pleased !" answered the editor, "I never heard any thing like it; we have no orator in England who can compare with him. He is the most eloquent speaker living."
Mr. Phillips has not expended all his force on opposition to slavery ; temperance, peace, the rights of woman, and other measures of reform, have ever found in him a ready, powerful, and eloquent advocate. His devotion to woman partakes much of the lofty character of the best days of chivalry, and leads one inevitably to the conviction that his own wife must have very nearly filled his exalted ideal of the true woman.
The few review articles from the pen of Mr. Phillips on other than reform topics, his published volume of orations, and the lectures on scientific subjects which he had delivered (the lec- ture on " The Lost Arts" has been repeated. it is said, many hun- dreds of times), indicate the breadth of his scholarship, and the great loss which science and literature have sustained, in relin- quishing him to become the Apostle of Reform.
Since the war, Mr. Phillips has not, as Mr. Garrison did so gracefully, accepted the verdict of the people that his work was accomplished, and that henceforth he might peacefully enjoy the victories which his good sword had won. A little younger than his friend Garrison, he has more of the Ironsides blood in
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him than he, and he prefers to fight on, though it be with invisible foes, or even with wind-mills, like the chivalric Don Quixote. His ideal man is placed on a higher level than ever before, and his long continued use of invective has made him soured and bitter toward all men who do not fully come up to it. He is a man who will always do best to head a forlorn hope, always win the greatest triumphs when in a minority. Indeed it is impossible for him to be anywhere else. The atmosphere of a majority, in agreement with him, oppresses him as an enelosed house does a Rocky mountain trapper. He cannot breathe in it. His action in regard to the recent nominations of the Republican party ean hardly be termed either wise or just ; but the party is powerful enough to permit the gallant warrior, the hero of so many battles with oppression, to disport himself as he pleases, and in remembrance of his past services, to bear with some seeming waywardness.
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