Part 14

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."

The reply was, "Don't you see that the regiment is in the mob?"

The young lawyer went back to his office sadly and thoughtfully.

He said, twenty years later, before the anti-slavery meeting on the anniversary of this mob: "Let me thank the women who came here twenty years ago, some of whom are met here to-day, for the good they have done me. I thank them for all they have taught me. I had read Greek and Roman and English history; I had by heart the classic eulogies of brave old men and martyrs; I dreamed, in my folly, that I heard the same tone in my youth from the cuckoo lips of Edward Everett;--these women taught me my mistake. They taught me that down in those hearts, which loved a principle for itself, asked no man's leave to think or speak, true to their convictions, no matter at what hazard, flowed the real blood of '76, of 1640, of the hemlock-drinker of Athens, and of the martyr-saints of Jerusalem. I thank them for it!"

The year after the Garrison mobbing scene, Phillips began to take part in the lyceum lectures, which at that time were popular, as the University Extension lectures are now. He spoke usually upon some topic in natural science, being more fond of this evidently than of the law.

The colored people were refused admittance to lectures; and this fact so incensed Emerson, Sumner, George William Curtis, and Phillips, that they refused to speak where the negroes were not admitted. This refusal soon broke the exclusive and unnatural custom.

In this year, 1836, Phillips met a young lady two years younger than himself, Ann Terry Greene, the daughter of a wealthy Boston merchant. Her cousin, Miss Grew, was to go by stage-coach with her intended husband to Greenfield, Mass., and Miss Greene was to accompany them. Phillips was asked to join the party. The brilliant young woman, as she herself said, "talked abolition to him all the way up." Mr. Phillips was never a great talker, but a good listener. He said, "I learn something from every one."

Both parents were dead; and she had been received as a daughter into the home of her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Henry G. Chapman, who lived in Chauncy Place, near Summer Street. Both were warm friends of Garrison, and deeply interested in the anti-slavery movement. The young girl, with all the enthusiasm of youth, and the impulse of a strong and noble nature, espoused the cause of the slave, and was not afraid to stand for the right in a choice so unpopular among the rich and aristocratic.

The acquaintance begun on the stage-coach resulted in an engagement the same year; and the following year, Oct. 12, 1837, they were married. Like Mrs. Browning, Miss Greene was an invalid at the time of her marriage, and remained thus all her life.

"Of Mr. Phillips's unbounded admiration and love for his wife," writes Francis Jackson Garrison in his memorial sketch of "Ann Phillips," "of his chivalrous devotion to her, and absolute self-abnegation through the more than forty-six years of their married life, and of his oft-confessed indebtedness to her for her wise counsel and inspiration, matchless courage, and unswerving constancy, the world knows in a general way; but only those who have been intimately acquainted with them both can fully realize and appreciate it all. They also know how ardent was her affection for him, and how great her pride in his labors and achievements."

When his speeches were first published in book form, in 1863, he wrote on the title-page of one volume, and gave it to his wife, "Speeches and Lectures. By Ann Phillips." Thus thoroughly did he appreciate her helpfulness.

Mrs. Phillips wrote to a friend regarding her husband, whom she called her "better _three-quarters_," "When I first met Wendell, I used to think, 'It can never come to pass; such a being as he is could never think of me.' I looked upon it as something as strange as a fairy-tale."

A month after her marriage, she wrote a friend, Nov. 19, 1837: "Only last year, on my sick-bed, I thought I should never see another birthday, and I must go and leave him in the infancy of our love, in the dawn of my new life; and how does to-day find me? the blessed and happy wife of one I thought I should never perhaps live to see. Thanks be to God for all his goodness to us, and may he make me more worthy of my Wendell! I cannot help thinking how little I have acquired, and Wendell, only two years older, seems to know a world more."

And yet, with all this depreciation of self, she had such a fine mind and sound judgment that Phillips deferred to her constantly, talked over with her the arguments of his speeches, and valued her approval more than that of all the world beside. As in the case of John Stuart Mill and his wife, intellectual companionship seemed the basis of their extremely happy married life.

Four years later they moved into a modest brick house, 26 Essex Street, given to Mrs. Phillips by her father, where they lived for forty years. From here Mrs. Phillips writes to a friend concerning herself: "Now what do you think her life is? Why, she strolls out a few steps occasionally, _calling_ it a walk; the rest of the time from bed to sofa, from sofa to rocking-chair; reads generally the _Standard_ and _Liberator_, and that is pretty much all the literature her aching head will allow her to peruse; rarely writes a letter, sees no company, makes no calls, looks forward to spring and birds, when she will be a little freer.... I am not well enough even to have friends to tea, so that all I strive to do is to keep the house neat and keep myself about. I have attended no meetings since I helped fill 'the negro pew.' What anti-slavery news I get, I get second-hand. I should not get along at all, so great is my darkness, were it not for Wendell to tell me that the world is still going.... We are very happy, and only have to regret my health being so poor, and our own sinfulness. Dear Wendell speaks whenever he can leave me, and for his sake I sometimes wish I were myself again; but I dare say it is all right as it is."

In 1846 Mrs. Phillips writes: "Dear Wendell has met with a sad affliction this fall in the death of his mother.... She was everything to him--indeed, to all her children; a devoted mother and uncommon woman.... So poor unworthy I am more of a treasure to Wendell than ever, and a pretty frail one. For his sake I should love to live; for my own

## part I am tired, not of life, but of a sick one. I meet with but little

sympathy; for these long cases are looked upon as half, if not wholly, _make-believes_,--as if _playing well_ would not be far better than playing sick."

On the same sheet of paper Mr. Phillips writes: "Dear Ann has spoken of my dear mother's death. My good, noble, dear mother! We differed utterly on the matter of slavery, and she grieved a good deal over what she thought a waste of my time, and a sad disappointment to her; but still I am always best satisfied with myself when I fancy I can see anything in me which reminds me of my mother. She lived in her children, and they almost lived in her, and the world is a different one, now she is gone!"

Nearly a dozen years later Mr. Phillips writes to a friend: "We are this summer at Milton, one of the most delightful of our country towns, about ten miles from Boston. Ann's brother has a place here, and we are with him. She is as usual--little sleep, very weak, never goes down-stairs, in most excellent and cheerful spirits, interested keenly in all good things, and, I sometimes tell her, so much my motive and prompter to every good thing, that I fear, should I lose her, there'd be nothing of me left worth your loving."

After they had been married thirteen years, having no children of their own, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips took into their home, as a daughter, Phoebe Garnaut, twelve years old, the daughter of the lovely Eliza Garnaut, who had died of cholera the year before, through her unselfish devotion to others. This child remained to brighten the Phillips' home for ten years, when she married Mr. George Washburn Smalley, the London correspondent of the _New York Tribune_, and made her home abroad.

Dr. Buckingham says truly that Wendell Phillips "was a lover all his life,--not with the instinctive love of youth alone, but with the secured attachment, the quiet confidence of the heart, the beautiful affectionateness, which, in the later years of the pure and good, is a far superior development of character, and a far richer enjoyment, than the effervescence of youthful days. She was, as he wrote me once, his counsel, his guide, his inspiration."

As long as Mr. Phillips lived, whenever he was at home, he visited the markets daily, searching for things which should tempt the appetite of "Ann." Lovely flowers were in her windows from one year's end to the other, placed there by his thoughtfulness or that of other dear friends. Fond of music, he daily left her money for the hand-organs played beneath her window. Her love, her cheer, her enthusiastic devotion to the great causes which he pleaded with inimitable grace and power, more than paid him for all his care and self-sacrifice.

Two months after their marriage came the event which made him, like Byron, "awake to find himself famous."

On Nov. 7, 1837, the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Ill. He was a Presbyterian clergyman from Maine, a graduate of Waterville College. Going West, he became the editor of the St. Louis _Observer_, a weekly religious paper of his own denomination.

A negro having been chained to a tree and burned to death for killing an officer who attempted to arrest him, the judge decided in favor of the mob. Rev. Mr. Lovejoy protested against such barbarity, and his printing-office was at once destroyed by the lawless. He moved his paper to Alton, Ill., but the slavery sympathizers destroyed his press. Some citizens reimbursed him for the loss. Another press was purchased and destroyed, and then another. The fourth press, the mayor and law-abiding citizens determined should be defended.

In the evening a mob gathered from the saloons,--their usual place of starting,--and threatened to burn the building where it was stored. The officials seemed powerless, the building was fired, and the Rev. Mr. Lovejoy received three balls in his breast.

The death of this young minister in a free State sent a thrill of indignation throughout the North. Dr. William Ellery Channing and one hundred others called a meeting at Faneuil Hall, Boston, for the morning of Dec. 8.

The Hon. Jonathan Phillips, a relative of Wendell Phillips, presided over the crowded assemblage. Dr. Channing spoke eloquently. Soon in the gallery, James T. Austin, the Attorney-General of Massachusetts, a prominent lawyer, and member of Dr. Channing's congregation, arose and declared that Lovejoy "died as the fool dieth," and compared his murderers to the men who destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. The audience was intensely excited.

Young Phillips, twenty-six years old and comparatively unknown, standing among the people,--there are no seats in the hall,--said to his neighbor, "Such a speech in Faneuil Hall must be answered in Faneuil Hall."

"Why not answer it yourself?" whispered the man.

"Help me to the platform and I will," was the reply; and pushing his way through the turbulent crowd he reached the rostrum.

He began with all the grace and self-control which characterized him in after years. There were mingled cries of, "Question," "Hear him," "Go on," "No gagging," and the like.

"Riding the whirlwind undismayed," says George William Curtis, in his eulogy, "he stood upon the platform in all the beauty and grace of imperial youth--the Greeks would have said a god descended--and in words that touched the mind and heart and conscience of that vast multitude, as with fire from heaven, recalling Boston to herself, he saved his native city and her cradle of liberty from the damning disgrace of stoning the first martyr in the great struggle for personal freedom."

"Mr. Chairman," he said, "when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips (pointing to the portraits on the wall) would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American--the slanderer of the dead.... Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up."

This was received with applause and hisses, with cries of, "Make him take back 'recreant.' He sha'n't go on till he takes it back."

As soon as he could proceed he said, "Fellow-citizens, I cannot take back my words. Surely the Attorney-General, so long and well-known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against one so young as I am,--my voice never before heard within these walls!"

"In the annals of American speech," says Curtis, "there had been no such scene since Patrick Henry's electrical warning to George the Third.... Three such scenes are illustrious in our history. That of the speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall, and of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg--three, and there is no fourth."

From this time Wendell Phillips was famous; but, save for the approbation of his young wife, he stood nearly alone. He had already spoken once before an Anti-Slavery Convention at Lynn, Mass. He was now a despised abolitionist. His family were disappointed, his college was surprised, his law constituency well-nigh disappeared. He was socially ostracized.

James Russell Lowell, who also knew what it cost to be on the unpopular side, spoke thus nobly of Phillips:

"He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes; Many there were, who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords; He scorned their gifts of fame and power and gold, And, underneath their soft and flowery words, Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went And humbly joined him to the weaker part, Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content So he could be the nearer to God's heart, And feel its solemn pulses sending blood Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good."

Mr. Phillips turned his time and thought more than ever to the lecture platform, because in this way he could mould public opinion. He began to deliver "The Lost Arts," in 1838, which gives a glimpse of early civilization in glass-making, in gems, colors, metals, canals, etc., and gave it over two thousand times during the next forty-five years, receiving for it, Dr. Martyn says, which statement he heard from Phillips's own lips, a net result of $150,000.

When asked to lecture he would state his price if he were to speak on science or biography, of which he was especially fond, but would make no charges and pay his own expenses if he might speak on slavery or temperance. If he spoke once he was sure to be sought again, and sooner or later the people heard concerning the subjects to which he had dedicated his life.

Having been made the general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Phillips organized a strong lecture force, and made every schoolhouse and church where he was allowed to enter the centre for discussions. Mrs. Phillips's health seeming to fail more and more, it was deemed wise to cross the ocean for her sake. They accordingly sailed from New York for London, June 6, 1839, arriving in July. They visited France, Italy, and Germany, and remained abroad two years, without, however, any improvement for the invalid wife.

On June 12, 1840, a World's Anti-Slavery Convention began its sessions in London. A call had been issued, addressed to the "Friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime." American societies sent delegates, Wendell Phillips and his wife, already abroad, Lucretia Mott, the distinguished Quaker, Garrison, and many others.

When they reached England, the women were refused as delegates. They asked Wendell Phillips to plead their cause. When he left the house in London to do so, his wife said to him, "Wendell, don't shilly-shally."

He spoke with his usual politeness and power: "It is the custom there [America] not to admit colored men into respectable society; and we have been told again and again that we are outraging the decencies of humanity when we permit colored men to sit by our side. When we have submitted to brickbats and the tar-tub and feathers in America, rather than yield to the custom prevalent there of not admitting colored brethren into our friendship, shall we yield to parallel custom or prejudice against women in Old England?

"We cannot yield this question if we would, for it is a matter of conscience, ... and British virtue ought not to ask us to yield."

The women were not admitted, however, and were obliged to sit in the gallery as spectators. None the less the women of both nations owe Phillips hearty thanks for his appreciation and his justice. Father Mathew, the great temperance leader of Ireland, deeply regretted the exclusion of the women delegates.

After the convention, Phillips and his wife went, by way of Belgium and the Rhine, to Kissingen, in Bavaria. He writes to a friend in England: "To Americans it was especially pleasant to see at Frankfort the oldest printed Bible in the world, and two pairs of Luther's shoes, which Ann would not quit sight of till I had mustered German enough to ask the man to let the 'little girl' feel of them."

Again he writes: "We started for Florence, by Bologna, that jewel of a city; ... for she admits women to be professors in her university, her gallery guards their paintings, her palaces boast their sculptures. I gloried in standing beside a woman-professor's monument, set up side by side with that of the illustrious Galvani."

To Garrison he writes from Naples, having then the same sympathy for the poor and the laborer which he showed through life: "When you meet in the same street a man encompassed with all the equipage of wealth, and the beggar, on whose brow disease and starvation have written his title to your pity, the question is, involuntarily, Is this a Christian city? To my mind the answer is, No....

"I hope the discussion of the question of property will not cease until the Church is convinced that, from Christian lips _ownership means responsibility for the right use_ of what God has given; that the title of a needy brother is as sacred as the owner's own, and infringed upon, too, whenever that owner allows the siren voice of his own tastes to drown the cry of another's necessities.... None know what it is to live till they redeem life from monotony by sacrifice."