The great orator, thinker, and leader was of the best blood of New
England. Educated, brilliant, aristocratic, he gave his life to the
lowly. No such self-sacrifice can ever be forgotten. His name will live
as long as American history is read.
Wendell Phillips was born in a stately mansion on Beacon Street, Boston,
Nov. 29, 1811, the eighth in a family of nine children. The father was
the Hon. John Phillips, a rich merchant, a judge of the Court of Common
Pleas, a member of the corporation of Harvard College, and of the
convention which revised the Constitution of the State; elected to the
House of Representatives, and later to the Senate till his death; the
first mayor of Boston; honored for a noble heart as well as for gifts of
speech, and worthy to be the parent of such a son as Wendell.
Sally Walley, the mother, the daughter of a wealthy merchant,
well-educated and of strong nature, soon perceived the unusual talents
of her son. Her earliest gift to him was a Bible, which was one of his
most prized treasures for seventy years.
Affectionate and domestic by nature, "Wendell's love for his mother was
a passion," says the Rev. Carlos Martyn, in his life of Phillips. Her
advice to him always was, "Be good and do good; this is my whole desire
for you." From her he learned his Bible and the catechism; and years
after, when he stood like a great oak in the forest, beat upon by wind
and storm, he never forgot to keep his trust where his mother first
taught him to place it.
From her knowledge and common sense in political and mercantile affairs,
he judged that other women must be able to take part in the world's
work, and therefore through life he asked for them an equal place in
home and state.
When a child he enjoyed tools, and would have made a good carpenter or
engineer. As his ancestors were mostly preachers--he was descended from
the Rev. George Phillips, who came from Great Britain in 1630, and was
settled at Watertown, Mass., for fourteen years, till his death--Wendell
seemed inclined to follow in their footsteps; for when he was four or
five years old, he would put a Bible in the chair before him, and
arranging other chairs in a circle, would address them by the hour.
"Wendell," said his father, "don't you get tired of this?"
"No," said the boy, "_I_ don't get tired, but it's rather hard on the
chairs!"
His most intimate playmate was J. Lothrop Motley, afterward the
celebrated historian. Often, in the Motley garret, they dressed
themselves in fancy costume, and declaimed poetry and dialogue; a good
preparation for the after years.
At eleven years of age Wendell was sent to the Boston Latin School, then
on School Street, where the Parker House now stands. Here he met and
became the warm friend of the studious Charles Sumner.
While noted for his love of books and power in declamation, he was also
fond of sports,--boating, horseback-riding, and all gymnastic exercises.
He was tall, graceful, and handsome.
In 1827, when he was sixteen, he entered Harvard College, whose
buildings, noble trees, and shaded walks have become dear to thousands,
and will be through all time. The widowed mother--John Phillips had been
dead four years--gave her promising boy her blessing, and sent him out
into the world to make a man of himself by virtuous and noble living, or
to spoil himself by yielding to temptation, as he should elect. He chose
the former course.
He became the intimate friend of Edmund Quincy, the son of the president
of the college, Josiah Quincy. He stood high in his classes, besides
reading extensively in general history and mechanics. He was also
greatly interested in genealogy.
Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, and James Watt were among his English heroes, and Benjamin
Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Eli Whitney among his American. Scott and
Victor Hugo were great favorites. Elizabeth Barrett Browning he regarded
as the first of modern poets. Through life he was an omniverous reader
of newspapers.
He was versed in several languages,--German, Italian, and Spanish, but
French was his favorite among the modern tongues. He was always skilled
in Latin.
Already his life had become more serious through the preaching of Dr.
Lyman Beecher. The Rev. Dr. O. P. Gifford relates that Phillips once
told a friend that he asked God "that whenever a thing be wrong it may
have no power of temptation over me; whenever a thing be right, it may
take no courage to do it. From that day to this it has been so. Whenever
I have known a thing to be wrong, it has held no temptation. Whenever I
have known a thing to be right, it has taken no courage to do it."
The Rev. Dr. Edgar Buckingham, secretary of the class of 1831, says: "I
remember well his appearance of devoutness during morning and evening
prayers in the chapel, which many attended only to save their credit
with the authorities. Doddridge's 'Expositor' Wendell bore to college in
his Freshman year (a present, I think, from his mother, a new volume),
to be his help in daily thought and prayer."
Another of his classmates says: "Before entering college he had been the
subject of religious revival. Previous to that he used to give way to
violent outbursts of temper, and his schoolmates would sometimes amuse
themselves by deliberately working him into a passion. But after his
conversion they could never succeed in getting him out of temper."
"He had a deep love for all that was true and honorable," said his
room-mate, the Rev. John Tappan Pierce of Illinois, "always detested a
mean action. His Bible was always open on the centre-table. His
character was perfectly transparent; there were no subterfuges, no
pretences about him. He was known by all to be just what he seemed....
As an orator, Phillips took the highest stand of any graduate of our
day. I never knew him to fail in anything or hesitate in a recitation."
Dr. Buckingham speaks of his "kindly, generous manner, his brightness of
mind, his perfect purity and whiteness of soul; ... with a most
attractive face, 'a smile that was a benediction,' with manners of
superior elegance, with conversation filled with the charms of
literature, with biography and history, full of refined pleasantry, ...
it was no wonder that his society was courted and respected by those who
had wealth at their command, and still more by those young men who came
from the South."
He was a member of the "Phi Beta Kappa," on account of his scholarship,
and president of the exclusive "Porcellian" and "Hasty-Pudding Club."
After graduation Phillips entered the Harvard Law School, under the
brilliant Judge Story, and was admitted to the bar when he was
twenty-three.
His first honor, after leaving the law school, was the invitation to
deliver a Fourth of July address at New Bedford.
Charles T. Congdon, the well-known journalist, says: "When Phillips
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 perfect to
which I had ever listened.... 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!'" How little he foreknew his own isolation and the
brightness of the star which shone almost alone for so many years!
He opened an office on Court Street, Boston, and began regular work,
knowing that idleness brings no fame. He drew up legal papers, wills,
etc., and, as he told a friend, during "those two opening years I paid
all my expenses, and few do it now."
On the afternoon of Oct. 21, 1835, sitting beside an open window on
Court Street, he saw a noisy crowd on Washington Street; and curiosity
prompted him to put on his hat, and learn the reason of the commotion.
He found a mob of four or five thousand men trying to force their way
into the office of the Anti-Slavery Society, No. 46 Washington Street,
where the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society was holding its meeting.
Warning handbills had been circulated about the city, and threats had
been heard concerning the women if they attempted to assemble; yet
nobody really believed that, in a rich and cultivated city, a company of
thirty women would be mobbed on account of free speech. It had not then
become apparent that the North was bound hand and foot by the
slave-power.
While the women prayed, the "broadcloth" mob, of well-dressed men, in
large part "gentlemen of property and standing," were yelling and
cursing outside. Mayor Lyman appeared on the scene, and commanded the
women to disperse, as he was powerless to protect them from bloodshed.
He besought the mob to lay down their arms; but they pushed their way
into the hall, appropriated the Testaments and Prayer-books, and then
began to search for William Lloyd Garrison, who was in an adjoining
room. He escaped across a roof, by the advice of the Mayor, but was
caught by the mob, who coiled a rope around his body, and dragged him,
bare-headed, and with torn garments, into State Street, toward the City
Hall, shouting, "Kill him!" "Hang the Abolitionist!"
He was taken to the Mayor's room, provided with needful clothing, thrust
into a closed carriage, and driven rapidly to jail, "as a disturber of
the peace," but in reality to save his life. The mob clung to the
wheels, dashed open the doors, seized the horses, and tried to upset
the carriage; but the driver laid his whip on horses and heads of
rioters alike, and Garrison was finally safely locked in a cell.
Wendell Phillips looked on bewildered, and seeing, near by, the colonel
of his own Suffolk regiment, in which he also was an officer, said, "Why
does not the Mayor call out the regiment? We would cheerfully take arms
in such a case as this."