Parker's immense influence was due to the brain rather than to the
heart. He possessed no grace of person, music of voice, or charm of
manner, none of that fascination which is a part of the great orator. He
was a white-hot flame which scorched and seared, an intellect pure and
piercing, a self-made instrument to expose the shams of society.
Closely associated with Garrison and Parker in the fight against
slavery, and in some ways more famous than either, was Wendell Phillips.
The very opposite of Parker, handsome in person, cultivated in manner,
with a charm of personality seldom equalled,--the two yet worked hand in
hand for a common cause, the one, as it were, supplementing the other.
Wendell Phillips was the son of John Phillips, the first mayor of
Boston, and was a year younger than Theodore Parker. He went the way of
all well-to-do Boston youth through Harvard, graduating there in 1831,
without distinguishing himself particularly, except by his skill in
debate and his finished elocution. During one of the revivals of
religion which followed the settlement of Dr. Lyman Beecher at Boston,
he became a convert, and this marked the beginning of his interest in
the great moral question of the day, slavery. It soon became
overwhelming, and was given point and passion by a spectacle which he
witnessed on October 21, 1835.
He had studied for the law, been admitted to the bar, and opened an
office, and looking from his office window on that October day, he saw a
mob break up an anti-slavery meeting on the street below, pull William
Lloyd Garrison off the platform, tear his clothes from his back, throw a
rope around him and drag him through the streets, ready to hang him, and
prevented from doing so only by a ruse of the mayor, who got Garrison
into the jail and locked him up for safety. That spectacle moved the
young lawyer through and through, and from that moment he was an avowed
Abolitionist.
"If clients do not come," he had said to a friend a short time before,
"I will throw myself heart and soul into some good cause and devote my
life to it."
Clients would have come, no doubt, but the good cause came first. His
opportunity came in 1837, when Elijah Lovejoy was murdered by a mob at
Alton, Illinois, for publishing an anti-slavery paper. Phillips, stirred
with indignation, arranged for a public meeting at Faneuil Hall, and was
of course present, but with no expectation of speaking. Dr. Channing
made an impressive address, and one or two others followed, when James
T. Austin, attorney-general of the state, and bitterly opposed to the
anti-slavery agitation, arose. He eulogized the Alton murderers,
comparing them with the patriots of the Revolution, and declared that
Lovejoy had "died as the fool dieth." Some instinct led the chair to
call upon Wendell Phillips to reply. He consented, and as he stepped
upon the platform won instant admiration by his dignity, his
self-possession, and his manly beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account