The Civil War had begun. Phillips, who had been in favor of disunion, because he and other anti-slavery men and women wished no union with slavery, now that the first shot had been fired on April 12, 1861, became a firm supporter of the Union. He said in his lecture "Under the Flag," delivered in Music Hall, April 21, 1861, and contained in the first volume of his speeches: "The cannon shot against Fort Sumter has opened the only door out of this hour. There were but two. One was compromise; the other was battle.... The South opened this with cannon shot, and Lincoln shows himself at the door. The war, then, is not aggressive, but in self-defence, and Washington has become the Thermopylæ of liberty and justice. Rather than surrender that capital, cover every square foot of it with a living body; crowd it with a million of men, and empty every bank vault at the North to pay the cost. Teach the world once for all, that North America belongs to the Stars and Stripes, and under them no man shall wear a chain." The speech was reported for the _Boston Journal_; but fearing that the war Democrats would not be pleased, it was suppressed. The friends of Phillips, learning of this, had it printed as an extra, and scattered one hundred thousand copies of it. Through these early years of the war Phillips was urging the arming of the negroes; and when some white men doubted their courage, he lectured through the land upon Toussaint L'Ouverture, the great leader of Hayti, whom he thus pictures:-- "Of Toussaint, Hermona, the Spanish general, who knew him well, said, 'He was the purest soul God ever put into a body.' Of him history bears witness, 'He never broke his word.'" When he was captured by the French and taken to France, "As the island faded from his sight, he turned to the captain and said, 'You think you have rooted up the tree of liberty, but I am only a branch; I have planted the tree so deep that all France can never root it up.'" He was thrown into a stone dungeon, twelve feet by twenty. "This dungeon was a tomb. The story is told that, in Josephine's time, a young French marquis was placed there, and the girl to whom he was betrothed went to the Empress and prayed for his release. Said Josephine to her, 'Have a model of it made and bring it to me.' Josephine placed it near Napoleon. He said, 'Take it away, it is horrible!' She put it on his footstool, and he kicked it from him. She held it to him the third time, and said, 'Sire, in this horrible dungeon you have put a man to die.' 'Take him out,' said Napoleon, and the girl saved her lover. "In this tomb Toussaint was buried, but he did not die fast enough. Finally the commandant was told to go into Switzerland, to carry the keys of the dungeon with him, and to stay four days; when he returned, Toussaint was found starved to death....