PHILLIPS, WENDELL An emi nent American orator am] reformer, born in Boston. Ile was educated at 'Harvard. graduat ing in 1831—the year of the first appearance of the Liberat,r. After a three-years' ('nurse at the Cambridge Law School, he was admitted to the Surf°lk Comity bar; Imt, he was little interested in professional eminence. On Getober 21, 1835, from his cave window he indignantly saw rison dragged it a rope's end by a respeettode ooh; in 1830 be joined the Abolitionists, and thereafter was occasionally heard at meetings of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Ile came at once into prominence by his Fanelli] Hall speech of December 1837. At the instance of Dr. W. E. Channing. a publie assembly had convened to protest in a suitable manner against the murder of the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy (q.v.) at Alton, Ill. This purpose seemed likely to he defeated by T. Austin, Attorney-General of Massachusetts. who commemled the Alton rioters. and affirmed that Lovejoy "died as the fool /Beth." To this Phillips made a brilliant and crushing reply, whose eloquence he never surpassed, and which has been ranked by Curtis with oration at and Lincoln's Gettysburg dress. From that time he was an Anti-Slavery leader. preeminently the orator of the movement. In 1839 he withdrew from the praetiee of law through scruples :If:al/1st complianee with the attorney's oath to the Guistitution, and later he reined to stand for a Comcress which he could not enter without swearing allecciance to that same Constitntbm. 11e called for the immediate and eomplete abolition of shivery. declared the Church partireps eriminis for its attempt to jus tify -davery by the Scriptures, opposed colonization for the negro, discontinued voting,. and regirded disunion as the hest means for accomplishing emancipation. He was not. however. like Gard. son, a non-resistant. In the Abolitionist divisions of 1839-40, he with Garrison opposed the organization of the Abolitionists in a political party, and the attempt to bar any from the anti slavery platform on the ground of religious be liefs. In 1840 he was the representative of the Massachusetts Abolitionists at the London World's Anti-Slavery Convention. Differences arose between himself and Garrison ill 1804, in regard to Lincoln's reelection, which he did not favor: and ill 180 those differences were renewed when he advocated and Garrison opposed the con tinuance of the Anti-Slavery Society. His con tention was that the work of the society was not finished until the negro obtained the suffrage. As a result lie was elected in Garrison's stead (18(15) to the presidency of the society, which was dissolved in April, 1870, upon the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment. Phillips was promi nently active in the various controversies of the Reconstruction. Yet his task did not end there. "Let it not be said." he once wrote, "that the old Abolitionist stopped with the negro, and was never able to see that the same principles claimed his utmost effort to protect all labor, white and black, and to further the discussion of every claim of humanity." Accordingly, he spoke in behalf of Ireland. Crete. the Indian, prison re
form, the abolition of capital punishment, pro hibitory legislation regulating the sale of liquor, the 'greenback theory.' and in connection with the labor question urged that vast combinations of capital with unlimited monopolies and powers tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. In 1870 he received about 20,000 ballots as labor reform and temperance candidate for the Gover norship of Massachusetts.
Phillips must be compared among American orators to Everett. Clay. and Webster; and his achievement is, perhaps, to be reckoned greater than that of any of these, when it is considered that whereas they represented a strong political organization or powerful conservative opinion, he attacked existing prejudices and institutions, for years spoke to hostile audiences, was denounced by the two great parties, and belonged to none. His manner was that of "simple colloquy." so that Greeley said Phillips made one think it easy to be an orator. His voice was in the baritone register, used larg,ely in what elocutionists call the upper chest notes, and remarkable not so much for its compass, volume, or intensity as for its timbre. In gestate or general action he was sparing. He seldom employed the dramatic mode of expression. But in invective or epigram he was unsurpassed, he possessed wit, which most other notable American orators have lacked. and he told an anecdote with mach skill. Phillips was not a scholar in the restricted sense, for this the demands made upon his time as• a public speaker did not permit. But his reading was considerable, and he could always find illustra tive material in the one subject he was aems tomed to sly he knew thoroughly—the great Eng lish Revolution. In addition to his anti-slavery and other reform speeches. he appeared in various lyceum addresses. the most noteworthy of which are The Lost Arts, Toussaint l'Ourerture. and Daniel O'Connell, and in 1881 he made a distinguished oration on The Neholar in a Republie at the eentennial anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard. During anti-slavery days he always offered to speak without remuneration and pay his expenses if he might substitute an anti-slav ery for a literary subject. He wrote for the Lib erator and the Anti-Slavery Standard, and pub lished a number of pamphlets, including The Con stitution' a. Proslarcry Compact (1844) Can Abolitionists Vote or Take Office Under the United States Constitution! (1845) ; Review of Spooner's Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1847) : Review of Webster's Serenth-of-March Speech ( 1S50) ; Review of Kossuth's Coarse (1851); Defense of the Anti-Slavery Movement (1853). Collections of Speeches, Lectures and Letters have appeared at Boston. the first series, edited by James Reelpath, in 1864, the second by T. C. Pease in 1892. These are edited from the best stenographic reports. There are two inadequate biographies, one by Austin (Boston, 1888), the other by Martyr]. (New York, 1890; American Reformers Series). Consult also works dealing with the anti-slavery struggle.