Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips | |
---|---|
daguerrotype by Mathew Brady of Wendell Phillips in his forties | |
Born | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | November 29, 1811
Died | February 2, 1884 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 72)
Burial place | Milton Cemetery |
Education | Harvard University (AB, LLB) |
Occupation | Attorney |
Known for | Abolitionism, advocacy for Native Americans |
Parent(s) | Sarah Walley John Phillips |
Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney.
According to George Lewis Ruffin, a Black attorney, Phillips was seen by many Blacks as "the one white American wholly color-blind and free from race prejudice".[1] According to another Black attorney, Archibald Grimké, as an abolitionist leader he is ahead of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner. From 1850 to 1865 he was the "preeminent figure" in American abolitionism.[2]
Early life and education
Phillips was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 29, 1811, to Sarah Walley and John Phillips, a wealthy lawyer, politician, and philanthropist, who was the first mayor of Boston.[3] He was a descendant of Reverend George Phillips, who emigrated from England to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1630.[4] All of his ancestors migrated to North America from England, and all of them arrived in Massachusetts between the years 1630 and 1650.[5][6]
Phillips was schooled at
Marriage to Ann Terry Greene
In 1836, Phillips was supporting the abolitionist cause when he met Ann Greene. It was her opinion that this cause required not just support but total commitment. Phillips and Greene were engaged that year and Greene declared Wendell to be her "best three quarters". They were married until Wendell's death, 46 years later.[7]
Abolitionism
On October 21, 1835, the
After being converted to the abolitionist cause by Garrison in 1836, Phillips stopped practicing law in order to dedicate himself to the movement. Phillips joined the
It was Phillips's contention that racial injustice was the source of all of society's ills. Like Garrison, Phillips denounced the
In 1845, in an essay titled "No Union With Slaveholders", he argued that the country would be better off, and not complicit in their guilt, if it let the slave states secede:
The experience of the fifty years...shows us the slaves trebling in numbers—slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government—prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere—trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools. To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness. The trial of fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery. Why prolong the experiment? Let every honest man join in the outcry of the American Anti-Slavery Society. (Quoted in Ruchames, The Abolitionists p. 196)
On December 8, 1837, in Boston's Faneuil Hall, Phillips' leadership and oratory established his preeminence within the abolitionist movement.[15] Bostonians gathered at Faneuil Hall to discuss Elijah P. Lovejoy's murder by a mob outside his abolitionist newspaper's office in Alton, Illinois, on November 7. Lovejoy died defending himself and his press from pro-slavery rioters who set fire to a warehouse storing his press and shot Lovejoy as he stepped outside to tip a ladder being used by the mob. His death engendered a national controversy between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists.
At Faneuil Hall, Massachusetts attorney general James T. Austin defended the pro-slavery mob, comparing their actions to 1776 patriots who fought against the British and declaring that Lovejoy "died as the fool dieth!"[16][a]
Trip to Europe
The married couple went abroad in 1839 for two years. They spent the summer in Great Britain and the rest of each year in mainland Europe. They made important connections and Ann wrote of them meeting
Instructed by his wife not to "shilly-shally", Phillips went in to appeal the case. According to the history of the
When the call reached America we found that it was an invitation to the friends of the slave of every nation and of every clime. Massachusetts has for several years acted on the principal of admitting women to an equal seat with men, in the deliberative bodies of the anti-slavery societies.... We stand here in consequence of your invitation, and knowing our custom, as it must be presumed you did, we had a right to interpret 'friends of the slave' to include women as well as men.[17][full citation needed][page needed]
The efforts of Phillips and others were only partly successful. The women were allowed in but had to sit separately and were not allowed to talk.[7] This event has been taken by Stanton, Anthony, and others as the point at which the women's rights movement began.[citation needed]
Before the Civil War
In 1854, Phillips was indicted for his participation in the celebrated attempt to rescue
After
On the eve of the Civil War, Phillips gave a speech at the New Bedford Lyceum in which he defended the Confederate States' right to secede:
A large body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? ...I maintain on the principles of '76 that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. ...You can never make such a war popular. ...The North never will endorse such a war."[18]
In 1860 and 1861, many abolitionists welcomed the formation of the
In the mid-1862, Phillips's nephew, Samuel D. Phillips, died at Port Royal, South Carolina, where he had gone to take part in the so-called Port Royal Experiment to assist the slave population there in the transition to freedom.
Women's rights activism
Phillips was also an early advocate of women's rights. In 1840 he led the unsuccessful effort at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London to have America's women delegates seated.[citation needed] In the July 3, 1846, issue of The Liberator he called for securing women's rights to their property and earnings as well as to the ballot. He wrote:
I have always thought that the first right restored to woman would be that of the full and unfettered control of all her property and earnings, whether she were married or unmarried. This, too, is, in one sense, the most important to be secured. The responsibility of such a trust at once develops character and intellect, and goes far to afford the hitherto mission and indispensable motive to education. Next in order of importance and time, comes the ballot. So it has always been with all disfranchised classes; first property—then political influence and rights; the first prepares for, gives weight to, challenges, finally secures the second.[20]
In 1849 and 1850, he assisted Lucy Stone in conducting the first woman suffrage petition campaign in Massachusetts, drafting for her both the petition and an appeal for signatures. They repeated the effort the following two years, sending several hundred signatures to the state legislature. In 1853, they directed their petition to a convention charged with revising the state constitution, and sent it petitions bearing five thousand signatures. Together Phillips and Stone addressed the convention's Committee on Qualifications of Voters on May 27, 1853. In 1854, Phillips helped Stone call a New England Woman's Rights convention to expand suffrage petitioning into the other New England states.[21]
Phillips was a member of the National Woman's Rights Central Committee, which organized annual conventions throughout the 1850s, published its Proceedings, and executed plans adopted by the conventions. He was a close adviser of Lucy Stone, and a major presence at most of the conventions, for which he wrote resolutions defining the movement's principles and goals.[22] His address to the 1851 convention, later called "Freedom for Woman", was used as a women's rights tract[23] into the twentieth century. In March 1857, Phillips and Stone were granted hearings by the Massachusetts and Maine legislatures on the woman suffrage memorial sent to twenty-five legislatures by the 1856 National Woman's Rights Convention.[24] As the movement's treasurer, Phillips was trustee with Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony of a $5,000 fund given anonymously to the movement in 1858, called the "Phillips fund" until the death of the benefactor, Francis Jackson, in 1861, and thereafter the "Jackson Fund".[25]
Postwar activism
Phillips's philosophical ideal was mainly self-control of the animal, physical self by the human, rational mind, although he admired martyrs like
Reconstruction Era activism
As Northern victory in the
He lamented the passage of the
Despite his belief that
In 1879, Phillips argued that black suffrage and political participation during Reconstruction had not been a failure, and that the main error of the era had been the failure to redistribute land to the freedmen.[31] He defended black voters as being "less purchasable than the white man," credited black labor and rule for the nascent regrowth of the Southern economy, and commended black bravery against attacks from the first Ku Klux Klan.[31]
As the Reconstruction era came to a close, Phillips increased his attention to other issues, such as women's rights, universal suffrage, temperance, and the labor movement.[32]
Equal rights for Native Americans
Phillips was also active in efforts to gain equal rights for
Public opinion turned against Native American advocates after the
Illness and death
By late January 1884, Phillips was suffering from
Phillips died in his home, on Common Street in
A solemn funeral was held at
On February 12, a memorial service was held at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sullivan Street in New York City.[40] Rev. William B. Derrick gave a eulogy, describing Phillips as a friend of humanity and a citizen of the world.[40] Timothy Thomas Fortune also eulogized Phillips, calling him a reformer who was as bold as a lion, who had reformed a great wrong, and who had left a rejuvenated Constitution.[40]
On February 8, in the
A memorial event was held in Tremont Temple, Boston, on April 9, 1884. Archibald Grimké delivered a eulogy.[42]
Irish poet and journalist John Boyle O'Reilly, who was a good friend of Phillips, wrote the poem Wendell Phillips in his honor.[43]
Recognition and legacy
In 1904, the Chicago Public Schools opened Wendell Phillips High School in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago in Phillips's honor.
In July 1915, a monument was erected in
The Phillips community in Minneapolis was named after him.[44]
A phrase from his speech of January 20, 1861, "I think the first duty of society is justice,"[45] sometimes wrongly attributed to Alexander Hamilton, appears on various courthouses around the United States, including in Nashville, Tennessee.[46]
The Wendell Phillips School in Washington, D.C., was named in his honor in 1890. The school closed in 1950 and was turned into the Phillips School Condominium in 2002.
Bibliography
- Phillips, Wendell (1968) [1863]. Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. New York: Negro Universities Press.
- Finkenbine, Roy E. (2005). "Wendell Phillips and 'The Negro's Claim': A Neglected Reparations Document". JSTOR 25081197. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
See also
- Dyer Lum, labor activist and abolitionist who ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts on Phillips's ticket.
Notes
References
- ^ Ruffin, George L. (1884). "Introductory remarks". A eulogy on Wendell Phillips : Delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, April 9, 1884. Together with the proceedings incident thereto, letters, etc. Boston. p. 7.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Grimké, Archibald (1884). A eulogy on Wendell Phillips : Delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, April 9, 1884. Together with the proceedings incident thereto, letters, etc. Boston. p. 35.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b "A Famous Career," Reading [PA] Times, February 4, 1884, p. 1.
- ^ a b c d e "Wendell Phillips Dead: The Last Hours of One of the Apostles of Abolition". The New York Times. February 3, 1884. p. 1.
- ^ The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips By George Lowell Austin pp. 17–27
- ^ The "Old Northwest" Genealogical Quarterly, Volume 13 pp. 133–134
- ^ a b Garrison, Francis Jackson (1886). Ann Phillips, wife of Wendell Phillips, a memorial sketch. Boston. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ISBN 978-0-8071-4139-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-6405-1.
- ISBN 978-1-351-88994-0.
- ISBN 978-1-5017-1263-0.
- ^ Bearse, Austin (1880). Reminiscences of Fugitive-Slave Law Days in Boston. Boston: Warren Richardson. p. 6.
- ^ State Street Trust Company. Forty of Boston's historic houses. 1912.
- ^ Phillips, Wendell (1847). Review of Spooner's Essay on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery. Boston.
- ^ Phillips, Wendell (1890). The Freedom Speech of Wendell Phillips. Faneuil Hall, December 8, 1837. With descriptive letters from eye witnesses. Boston: Wendell Phillips Hall Association.
- ^ Darling, Arthur (1924). Political Changes in Massachusetts, 1824–48. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. p. 248.
- ^ Stanton, Cady, Gage, Blatch and Harper; History of Woman's Suffrage, Vol. 1 (1848–1861)
- ^ Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 13, 1861, p. 2.
- ^ Wendell Phillips Orator And Agitator, 1909 p. 223
- newspapers.com.
- ISBN 0-275-97877-X, pp. 133, 136, 170, 215, 297 note 24.
- ^ Million, 2003, pp. 109, 117, 146, 155–56, 226–27, 252, 293 note 26.
- ^ Phillips, Wendell; Parker, Theodore; Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (October 1851). Woman's Rights Tracts. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
- ^ Liberator, March 13, 1857, 43:3–5; Million, 231.
- ^ Million, 2003, pp. 258, 262, 310 note 4.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
- ^ a b Chaput, Erik J. (February 1, 2015). "The Reconstruction Wars Begin". The New York Times. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-4139-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-4139-7.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-4139-7.
- ^ a b Phillips, Wendell (March 1879). "Views of an Old Abolitionist". The North American Review: 257–260.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-4139-7.
- ISBN 978-1475933758.
- ^ a b Carey, William L. (ed.). "Wendell Phillips (1811–1884)". The American Civil War (1860–1865). The Latin Library. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
- ^ "Wendell Phillips Ill: Attacked by Heart Diesae and His Recovery Said to Be Doubtful". The New York Times. February 2, 1884. p. 1.
- ^ "Wendell Phillips Dangerously Ill". The Washington Post. February 2, 1884. p. 1.
- ^ a b c "Wendell Phillips: Anecdotes of the Great Orator by One of His Old-time Friends". The Washington Post. February 10, 1884. p. 6.
- ^ a b c "Wendell Phillips Buried: A Great Demonstration of Respect to the Dead Orator". The New York Times. February 7, 1884. p. 1.
- ^ "Wendell Phillips's Grave". The New York Times. April 29, 1886. p. 5.
- ^ a b c "Services in Memory of Mr. Phillips". The New York Times. February 13, 1884. p. 5.
- ^ a b "Congressional Notes". The Washington Post. February 9, 1884. p. 1.
- ^ Grimké, Archibald (1884). A eulogy on Wendell Phillips : Delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, April 9, 1884. Together with the proceedings incident thereto, letters, etc. Boston.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Wendell Phillips Poem by John Boyle O'Reilly – Poem Hunter". PoemHunter.com. Retrieved May 23, 2017.
- ^ "Phillips Community". City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. August 2, 2011. Archived from the original on August 2, 2011. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
- ISBN 0-524-01125-7.
- ^ "Justice A. A. Birch Building". Gresham, Smith & Partners. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
Further reading
- Aisèrithe, A.J. and Donald Yacovone (eds.), Wendell Phillips, Social Justice, and the Power of the Past. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2016.
- Bartlett, Irving H. "The Persistence of Wendell Phillips," in Martin Duberman (ed.), The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965; pp. 102–122.
- Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell and Ann Phillips: The Community of Reform, 1840–1880. New York: W.W. Norton, 1982.
- Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961.
- Debs, Eugene V., "Wendell Phillips: Orator and Abolitionist," Pearson's Magazine, vol. 37, no. 5 (May 1917), pp. 397–402.
- Filler, Louis (ed.), "Wendell Phillips on Civil Rights and Freedom," New York: Hill and Wang, 1965.
- Hofstadter, Richard. "Wendell Phillips: The Patrician as Agitator" in The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.
- Osofsky, Gilbert. "Wendell Phillips and the Quest for a New American National Identity" Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, vol. 1, no. 1 (1973), pp. 15–46.
- Stewart, James Brewer. Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero. LSU Press, 1986. 356 pp.
- Stewart, James B. "Heroes, Villains, Liberty, and License: The Abolitionist Vision of Wendell Phillips" in Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 1979; pp. 168–191.
External links
- Works by or about Wendell Phillips at Internet Archive
- Works by Wendell Phillips at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Wendell Phillips at Find a Grave
- Article from "Impeach Andrew Johnson"
- 'Toussaint L'Ouverture' A lecture by Wendell Phillips (1861)
- The Liberator Files, Items concerning Wendell Phillips from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
- Letters, 1855, n.d.. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- The story of The Liberator is retold in the 1950 radio drama "The Liberators (Part I)", a presentation from Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham