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Wendell Phillips, 1811-1884
Wendell Phillips's fiery speeches galvanized the faithful and converted the wavering to the cause of erasing slavery from American society. A Boston lawyer, Phillips shot to attention as an orator with his fervent 1837 attack on the southern "slaveocracy" after a pro-slavery mob murdered crusading newspaperman Elijah Lovejoy. Phillips was a disciple of William Lloyd Garrison, and like his mentor he came to the radical position that slavery had so infected America that the Constitution itself was tainted. After the Civil War, Phillips continued as a social reformer and was one of the first leaders of the American labor movement.
Martin Milmore, 1869 |