Speeches, Lectures And Letters Of Wendell Phillips - free ebook by Wendell Phillips

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Speeches, Lectures And Letters Of Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips

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These Speeches and Lectures have been collected into a volume at the earnest and repeated requests of the personal friends and the followers of Mr. Phillips. In committing them to the Publisher, he wrote:— I send you about One half of my speeches which have been reported during the last Ten years. Put them into a volume, if you think it worth while. Four or Five of them ( “Idols,” “The election,” “Mobs and education,” “Disunion,” “Progress,” ) were delivered in such circumstances as made it prop

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Biographical Sketch Of Wendell Phillips

Biographical Sketch Of Wendell Phillips

Universal liberty was the inheritance of Wendell Phillips. The blood of unmitigated Puritan and of unsullied Revolutionary sires ran in his veins. Freedom of thought and of religion had been the stamping-ground of his ancestors. He strove for them, no less than for freedom of being and of action. Born in Boston,— of which city his father, John Phillips, was the First mayor,— on the 29th of November, 1811, he was early destined to strange distinctions. In 1831 he was graduated from Harvard Colleg

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The Murder Of Lovejoy

The Murder Of Lovejoy

On November 7, 1887, Rev. E. P. Lovejoy was shot by a mob at Alton, Illinois, while attempting to defend his Printing-press from destruction. When this was known in Boston, William Ellery Channing headed a petition to the Mayor and Aldermen, asking the use of Faneuil Hall for a public meeting. The request was refused. Dr. Channing then addressed a very impressive letter to his fellow-citizens, which resulted in a meeting of influential gentleman at the Old Court Room. Resolutions, drawn by Hon.

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Woman's Rights

Woman's Rights

This speech was made at a Convention held at Worcester, on the 15th and 16th of October, 1851, upon the following resolutions, which were offered by Mr. Phillips:— 1. Resolved, That, while we would not undervalue other methods, the right of suffrage for women is, in our opinion, the corner-stone of this enterprise, since we do not seek to protect woman, but rather to place her in a position to protect herself. 2. Resolved, That it will be woman's fault if, the ballot once in her hand, all the ba

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Mobs And Education

Mobs And Education

“On Sunday forenoon,” says the Liberator of December 21, 1860, The Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society (Theodore Parker's Fraternity) held their usual Sunday meeting in Music Hall. It having been rumored for several days previous, that Mr. Phillips was likely to be mobbed and assaulted, a large detachment of police was in attendance at the hall, at an early hour. Before the services commenced, large numbers of the police were stationed in Two small rooms adjoining the platform. Others were stat

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Letter To The Tribune

Letter To The Tribune

Sir: You misrepresent me when you say that I discourage enlistments in the Union armies; though, for aught I know, the garbled extracts and lying versions of New York papers may make me do that and many other things I never thought of. You know, by experience, that the American press, in general, neither tries nor means to speak truth about Abolitionists of any type. I have never discouraged enlistments. In the Union army are my kindred and some of my dearest friends. Others rest in fresh and ho

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Prefaratory Note

Prefaratory Note

Twenty-eight years ago, in 1863, Wendell Phillips yielded to the solicitations of his friends, and revised for publication a selection of his Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. The moment was well chosen. On the One hand public interest in the Antislavery question, the constant burden of the orator's utterance, had widened and deepened with the progress of the war, and had reached its height when the Emancipation Proclamation appeared; and on the other hand, the personal popularity of Mr. Phillips

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Epigraph

Epigraph

Knight-errant of unfriended Truth, he blew His magic note that charmed the air to song Before grim castles, and to frowning Wrong Flung down his gauntlet. Giant Error flew, Full-armed, to crush him; but his falchion true Smote the foul monster prone the earth along. Meat from the eater, honey from the strong, Not he, but others, through his conflict drew.Alert, unwearied, with his lance at rest, What wonder he should win where others fail? Each high emprise led up to farther quest; No selfish ru

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The Right Of Petition

The Right Of Petition

At the Quarterly Meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, held in Lynn, March 28, 1837, the following resolution was offered by Wendell Phillips, Esq., of Boston:— Resolved, That the exertions of The Hon. John Quincy Adams, and the rest of the Massachusetts Delegation who sustained him, in his defence of the right of petition, deserve the cordial approbation and the gratitude of every American citizen. This was the First speech of Mr. Phillips, and marked his entrance upon the Antislave

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Letter To George Thompson (1839)

Letter To George Thompson (1839)

This letter was written in England in the summer of 1809, and read by Mr. Thompson at the Anniversary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society in that year. My dear Thompson,— I am very sorry to say no to your pressing request, but I cannot come to Glasgow; duty takes me elsewhere. My heart will be with you though, on the 1st of August, and I need not say how much pleasure it would give me to meet, on that day especially, the men to whom my country owes so much, and on the spot dear to every American

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Slavery

Slavery

Speech delivered at the First Annual Meeting of the British India Society, held at Freemason's Hall, London, July 6, 1840. In presenting a resolution relating to the effect of the cultivation of cotton in British India upon slavery in the United States, Mr. Phillips said:— It is now Ten years since the friends of the negro in America First put forth the demand for the unconditional abolition of slavery. They thought they would have nothing more to do than to show that emancipation would be safe,

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Irish Sympathy With The Abolition Movement

Irish Sympathy With The Abolition Movement

At a meeting in favor of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Friday Evening, January 28, 1842, the chairman presented an Irish address to the Irish residents of the United States signed by Daniel O'Connell, Father Mathew, and Sixty thousand other Irishmen, calling upon all Irish men in America to espouse the Antislavery cause. Mr. Phillips then offered the following resolutions, which after his advocacy were adopted by acclamation:— Resolved, That

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Welcome To George Thompson (1840)

Welcome To George Thompson (1840)

A reception to George Thompson, in Faneuil Hall, November 15, 1850, was broken up by an angry mob. The meeting was therefore adjourned to Worcester, and supplemented by other meetings in several cities. At the reception in Lynn, November 26, 1850, Mr. Phillips delivered the following speech:— This is certainly, fellow-citizens, a glad sight for my eloquent friend to look upon; these enthusiastic crowds, pressing to extend to him a welcome, and do their part in atonement for the scenes of 1835, a

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Kossuth (1851)

Kossuth (1851)

Speech delivered at the Antislavery Bazaar, Saturday Evening, December 27, 1851. I have been requested to consider this evening, the position which Kossuth occupies in relation to the Antislavery cause in America. I need not say to those who have traced the course of this illustrious man, that it must be with the profoundest regret that any One who loves liberty can utter the First word of criticism in regard to him. His life has been, up to the time of his landing on our shores, One continued s

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Crispus Attucks (1858)

Crispus Attucks (1858)

Speech delivered at the Festival commemorative of the Boston Massacre, in Faneuil Hall, March 5, 1858. Ladies and gentlemen: I am very glad to stand here in an hour when we come together to do honor to One of the First martyrs in our Revolution. I think we sometimes tell the story of what he did with too little appreciation of how much it takes to make the First move in the cold streets of a revolutionary epoch. It is a very easy thing to sit down and read the history; it is a very easy thing to

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Capital Punishment (1855)

Capital Punishment (1855)

Plea before a Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, March 16, 1855. I have not been able, Mr. Chairman, to attend any of the hearings of this Committee, and therefore I cannot be said to know accurately the ground taken by those who have supported the proposition that the gallows should be retained; but I presume I know it in general, and therefore, a general reply will not wander far from the points which the committee would like to have treated. I have always found that before the House

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Suffrage For Woman (1861)

Suffrage For Woman (1861)

Addresses made at the Tenth Woman's Rights Convention at Cooper Institute, New York, May 10 and 11, 1861. Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I wish I could carry on the same strain of remark which has just been addressed to you, for that touches the very heart of the question which brings us together this morning. We are seeking to change certain laws,— laws based on sex. Now, as he has suggested, there is another realm beside that of law, there is another arena beside the civil, and that is

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Woman's Rights And Woman's Duties (1866)

Woman's Rights And Woman's Duties (1866)

Address delivered in New York City, May 10, 1866. Ladies and gentlemen: I am very glad that all that will be required of me this morning, is to answer to the roll-call,— to say “Yes” to my name. You know you cannot have more than the whole of a subject. That is not possible. I have only had the pleasure of listening to the last address, by our friend Henry Ward Beecher; and I think if he had left a suggestion unmade, or any part of the field unexplored, I would have made an effort to supply the

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The Eight-Hour Movement (1865)

The Eight-Hour Movement (1865)

Address in Faneuil Hall, November 2, 1865. It is Twenty-nine years this month since I First stood on the platform of Faneuil Hall to address an audience of the citizens of Boston. I felt then that I was speaking for the cause of the laboring men, and if tonight I should make the last speech of my life, I would be glad that it should be in the same strain,— for laboring men and their rights. The labor of these Twenty-nine years has been in behalf of a race bought and sold. The South did not rest

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The Chinese (1870)

The Chinese (1870)

An Editorial in the “National (Antislavery) standard,” July 30, 1870. We welcome every man of every race to our soil and to the protection of our laws. We welcome every man to the best opportunities of improving himself and making money that our social and political systems afford. Let every oppressed man come; let every poor man come; let every man who wishes to change his residence come,— we welcome all; frankly acknowledging the principle that every human being has the right to choose his res

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The Foundation Of The Labor Movement (1871) Platform

The Foundation Of The Labor Movement (1871) Platform

At the Labor-Reform Convention, which assembled at Worcester, September 4, 1871, Mr. Phillips presided, and presented the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted. They are, indeed, a “Full body of faith;” and they show just where Mr. Phillips stood for the last Thirteen years of his life. We affirm, as a fundamental principle, that labor, the creator of wealth, is entitled to all it creates. Affirming this, we avow ourselves willing to accept the final results of the operation of a

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The Labor Question (1872)

The Labor Question (1872)

Delivered before the International Grand Lodge of the Knights of Saint Crispin, in April, 1872. Gentlemen, I feel honored by this welcome of your organization, and especially so when I consider that the marvellously rapid success of the political strength of the Labor movement, especially in New England, is due mainly to this organization. There never has been a party formed that in Three years has attracted toward itself such profound attention throughout the United States. Some of you may be o

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The Maine Liquor Law (1865) Or, The Laws Of The Commonwealth-Shall They Be Enforced?

The Maine Liquor Law (1865) Or, The Laws Of The Commonwealth-Shall They Be Enforced?

Address before the Legislative Committee, February 28, 1865. Gentlemen of the committee: The question you have to consider at this time grows out of the question of Temperance,— the interference with the sale, the public sale, of intoxicating drinks. It is not a new question. What we call the Temperance cause in this Commonwealth is half a century old; and on the other side of the water, if you analyze strictly the legislation of the old countries, the attempt to limit and prohibit, to a certain

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Review Of Dr. Crosby's Calm View Of Temperance (1881)

Review Of Dr. Crosby's Calm View Of Temperance (1881)

An Address before the Association of the Ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Tremont Temple, Boston, January 24, 1881. This is the only address in this volume which was read from manuscript, and probably the only One Mr. Phillips ever delivered in that manner. I am to offer you some remarks on a lecture delivered here a fortnight ago by Chancellor Crosby. He denounced the Temperance movement as now conducted. The address was not very remarkable for novelty, or weight of argument, or

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Letter From Naples (1841)

Letter From Naples (1841)

Dear Garrison,— I have borne very constantly in mind my promise, in London, to write you, but have found nothing in my way which I thought would be of interest; and these late lines come not as a letter, but only as an excuse. For I know nothing now of interest, except, perhaps, the loss of my “Liberators,” which the custom-house of His Holiness— under the general rule, I believe, forbidding all which has not passed the censorship— took from me as I went up to Rome, and which now lie at Civita V

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Address To The Boston School Children (1865)

Address To The Boston School Children (1865)

On Tuesday foreNoon, July 28, 1865, the Seventy-Second Annual Festival of the Public Schools of Boston took place in Music Hall. There was, as usual, a densely crowded attendance of the parents and friends of the children. The hall was handsomely decorated for the occasion. The choir of children numbered Twelve hundred, under the direction of Mr. Carl Zerrahn. Addresses were made by Mayor Lincoln, Rev. Henry Burroughs, Jr., Hon. Richard H. Dana, and Wendell Phillips, Esq. “I spoke without gestur

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The Old South Meeting House (1876)

The Old South Meeting House (1876)

An address delivered in the Old South Meeting-House, June 4, 1876, and revised by Mr. Phillips. It was in this building that he made his last public address,— the tribute to Harriet Martineau, which closes this volume,— December 26, 1883. Ladies and Gentlemen: Why are we here to-day? Why should this relic, a Hundred years old, stir your pulses to-day so keenly? We sometimes find a community or an individual with their hearts set on some old roof or great scene; and as we look on, it seems to us

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The Bible And The Church (1850) I.

The Bible And The Church (1850) I.

Address at the New England Antislavery Convention at the Melodeon, Boston, May 28-30, 1850. A clergyman by the name of Corliss having expressed his fears that some of the advocates of the slaves were lacking in a due appreciation of the Bible, and were therefore tending toward infidelity, Mr. Phillips rose and said:— I wish to say One word in regard to the remarks which have been addressed to us, in order that the Antislavery enterprise may stand aright before this audience. It might be judged f

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The Pulpit (1860)

The Pulpit (1860)

A Discourse before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Music Hall, November 18, 1860. I am going to use the hour you lend me this morning in speaking of the pulpit. Not that I expect to say anything new to you who have statedly frequented these seats for many years; but the subject commends itself to my interest just at this moment when we all feel so earnestly the propriety and the duty of endeavoring to perpetuate this legacy of Theodore Parker. This pulpit,— there are Two elements which

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Christianity A Battle, Not A Dream (1869)

Christianity A Battle, Not A Dream (1869)

A discourse at the Thirteenth Sunday Afternoon meeting, Horticultural Hall, Boston, April 11, 1869. To tell the truth, the subject is One not very familiar to my beaten path of thought, and I am present rather at the urgency of the Committee to take a share in the discussion of the topics for which the doors were opened, than from any earnest wish of my own. But still I should be ashamed to say, after having lived Thirty years of active life in a community stirred as ours has been, that I have n

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The Purtian Principle And John Brown (1859)

The Purtian Principle And John Brown (1859)

Delivered in Music Hall before the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, December 18, 1859. Thank God for John Calvin. To be sure, he burned Servetus; but the Puritans, or at least their immediate descendants, hung the witches; George Washington held slaves; and wherever you go up and down history, you find men, not angels. Of course you find imperfect men, but you find great men; men who have marked their own age, and moulded the succeeding; men to whose might of ability, and to whose disintere

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The Education Of The People (1859)

The Education Of The People (1859)

Address delivered in the Representatives' Chamber, Boston, March 10, 1859. In connection with this lecture the following remarks of Mr. Phillips in regard to our public school methods of instruction may well find place. They were delivered in Boston, in December, 1876— The public schools teach her arithmetic, philosophy, trigonometry, geometry, music, botany, and history, and all that class of knowledge. Seven out of Ten of them, remember, are to earn their bread by the labor of their hands. Wel

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The Scholar In A Republic (1881) Note.— See Page 363

The Scholar In A Republic (1881) Note.— See Page 363

Address at the Centennial Anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard College, June 30, 1881. None of Mr. Phillips's literary addresses is more characteristic than this, and in none are there more passages parallel with his earlier utterances. His First address before a strictly academic audience was given at the Commencement of Williams College in 1852, before the Adelphi Society. “His subject,” says a contemporary report, “Was the Duty of a Christian Scholar in a Republic. The Morale of the a

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The Lost Arts (1838)

The Lost Arts (1838)

No lecture in the American lyceum ever met with a wider or more (enthusiastic welcome than this. It was First delivered in the winter of 1838-39. Mr. Phillips had spoken before this upon subjects taken :from chemistry and physics, and on discoveries and inventions in the field of mechanics. Called suddenly to address a certain audience,— he thought there might be a charm in a familiar Resume of those arts which the ancients carried to a perfection still unrivalled. Hastily outlined in a series o

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Daniel O'Connell (1875.)

Daniel O'Connell (1875.)

On the One hundredth anniversary of the birth of Daniel O'Connell, August 6, 1875, a celebration was held in Music Hall, Boston. Mr. Phillips was the orator of the occasion. No subject could have been more congenial, for no statesman of his own day had more deeply impressed Mr. Phillips than O'Connell, and the name of the Irish agitator was often on the American agitators lips. The oration was often repeated, and takes rank with the orator's masterpieces. A Hundred years ago to-day Daniel O'Conn

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Theodore Parker (1860)

Theodore Parker (1860)

From the Proceedings of the New England Antislavery Convention at the Melodeon, Boston, May 31, 1860. The following resolutions were offered by Wendell Phillips:— Resolved, That in the death of our beloved friend and fellow-laborer Theodore Parker, liberty, justice, and truth lose One of their ablest and foremost champions,— One whose tireless industry, whose learning, the broadest, most thorough, and profound New England knows, whose masterly intellect, melted into a brave and fervent heart, ea

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Francis Jackson (1861)

Francis Jackson (1861)

At the funeral services at Mr. Jackson's late residence, Hollis Street, Boston, November 18, 1861. Here lies the body of One of whom it may be justly said, he was the best fruit of New England institutions. If we had been set to choose a specimen of what the best New England ideas and training could do, there are few men we should have selected before him. Broad views, long foresight, tireless industry, great force, serene faith in principles, parent of constant effort to reduce them to practice

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Address after the assassination of President Lincoln, Tremont Temple, Boston, April 23, 1865. These are sober days. The judgments of God have found us out. Years gone by chastised us with whips; these chastise us with scorpions. Thirty years ago how strong our mountain stood, laughing prosperity on all its sides None heeded the fire and gloom which slumbered below. It was nothing that a giant sin gagged our pulpits; that its mobs ruled our streets, burned men at the stake for their opinions, and

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Helen Eliza Garrison (1876)

Helen Eliza Garrison (1876)

Remarks at the funeral services of Mrs. Garrison, 125 Highland Street, Roxbury, Thursday, January 27, 1876. How hard it is to let our friends go! We cling to them as if separation were separation forever; and yet, as life nears its end, and we tread the last years together, have we any right to be surprised that the circle grows narrow; that so many fall, One after another, at our side? Death seems to strike very frequently; but it is only the natural, inevitable fate, however sad for the moment

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William Lloyd Garrison (1879)

William Lloyd Garrison (1879)

Remarks at the funeral services, Boston, May 28, 1879. It has been well said that we are not here to weep, and neither are we here to praise. No life closes without sadness. Death, after all, no matter what hope or what memories surround it, is terrible and a mystery. We never part hands that have been clasped life-long in loving tenderness but the hour is sad; still, we do not come here to weep. In other moments, elsewhere, we can offer tender and loving sympathy to those whose roof-tree is so

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Harriet Martineau (1883)

Harriet Martineau (1883)

Remarks at the Unveiling of Miss Anne Whitney's statue of Miss Martineau in the Old South Meeting-House, December 26, 1883. This was the last public utterance of Mr. Phillips. Webster once said, that “In war there are no Sundays.”So in moral questions there are no nations. Intellect and morals transcend all limits. When a moral issue is stirred, then there is no American, no German. We are all men and women. And that is the reason why I think we should indorse this memorial of the city to Harrie

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