Part 11

In politics Wasson was a republican without being a democrat. He hailed the advent of the republican party in 1856 as indicating an improvement in our political consciousness. Democracy, he said, led to political selfishness and disintegration. He pointed out many years before Von Holst that the secession of the southern states was the legitimate fruit of democratic principles. He thought that suffrage ought not to be a right, but a privilege, the privilege of good citizenship. He was also the first to argue in favor of civil-service reform, and a selection of officials by competitive examination. He might have found sufficient arguments from experience, but he was not content with that. He went back to the first principles of political science as indicated in the social organization of mankind. He laid down the rule that society is not more for the benefit of the individual than the individual for the benefit of society; and our last war sufficiently proved the truth of this. When he first brought forward these arguments at the Boston Radical Club in 1879 he was met by a storm of opposition and almost personal invective. One reason for this was that a large portion of his audience was composed of what is sometimes called strong-minded women, who fully expected to acquire the right of suffrage on democratic principles. His hearers had been accustomed to think of a republic and a democracy as one and the same thing, and they could not understand Wasson at all. They concluded that he must be a monarchist, an emissary of Bismarck. They had no arguments to oppose him with, for it was a subject they had never reflected upon; so they complained that he was illiberal, re-actionary, and lacked faith in human nature. Since they were in a numerical majority they thought they had the best of the discussion, but the most impartial of his listeners did not find it so. Louisa Alcott said once after a lively discussion, in her decisive manner, "I like Mr. Wasson, and I admire the way in which he fights against odds." His views on politics were similar to those held by Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and most of the founders of the Constitution, as also by all the great minds of history, by Aristotle, Cicero, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Leibnitz. Wasson however did not look to the past, but wished to improve in a rational manner on what we already have. He considered woman suffrage as a political monstrosity, and considered it even more dangerous in its tendencies than socialism.

The true reward of a man of genius lies not in his fame but in his influence. His celebrity is of more value to those who receive the rich gifts of his intellect than to himself. Wasson's direct influence during his life was limited to a very small circle; but who can tell how far it extended indirectly beyond this? To those who knew him the thought of this patient, indomitable truth-seeking hero was like an elixir of moral and spiritual vitality. So the orders of a field-marshal are carried to the generals of division, and from these pass onward till every private-soldier feels the impulse of a single will. Perhaps the time will come when he will be better appreciated. The future historian of our literature cannot well neglect so independent and original a thinker, and perhaps Americans of the next century may find him more congenial to their modes of thought than do those of the present era. If he lives at all, it is likely he will outlive every other writer of his time. One may read Plato or Bacon or Goethe, and then return to Wasson and still find something new and instructive in his essays--something we did not know before.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

If Hawthorne was the antipodes of Emerson, Wendell Phillips was of Wasson. One might form a proportion out of these four, in which Phillips and Hawthorne would be the extremes, and Emerson and Wasson the mean terms. He was, in his way, as perfect an artist as Hawthorne, while he differed from him as the sea does from the land. He was more like Emerson in his mental methods, and was a man of action. While he took the same interest in public affairs as Wasson, the slavery question was the only point on which the two could ever agree. One was an ardent and unreflecting revolutionist; the other a systematic thinker and conservative supporter of the general order of affairs.

When in 1870 he was candidate for governor of Massachusetts, on a hopeless ticket, and was taunted with being ambitious, he proudly replied, "Born of six generations of Yankees, I knew the way to office and turned my back on it thirty years ago." His family was one of the earliest and most generally respected in New England; and at one time was influential and flourishing, but now nearly extinct. Rev. George Phillips of Rainham in Norfolk, England, was a graduate of Cambridge University, and entered the Church of England, but soon became a dissenter, and embarked with Governor Winthrop on the ship Arabella, in 1630, for the western world. He was the first minister at Watertown; a position in those days as important as the presidency of a trunk line is in our own. Cotton Mather and the early writers speak of him almost as the founder of the Congregational Church in New England; and he and his descendants were all cultivated gentlemen. Two of his great-grandsons founded the preparatory academies at Andover and Exeter, called by that name. John Phillips, the father of Wendell, graduated at Harvard in 1788. He was the president of the Massachusetts senate for one term, and the first mayor of Boston, distinctly so called. His wife was a Miss Sarah Walley of Brookline, and Wendell himself was their eighth child, born November 29th, 1811--a year memorable for the appearance of a comet with six tails.

During his boyhood, the family lived in a large mansion house in Old Cambridge, which has since been occupied by Professor Andrews Norton and his son. In a large and amiable household, with a mother for whom he always showed the deepest respect, his earlier years must have been happy much beyond the lot of ordinary mortals. He was fitted for college at the Boston Latin School, where he was distinguished both for scholarship, faultless behavior, and fine declamations. Charles Sumner was his companion there, as well as in college and at the law-school. They are both said to have given striking proof of their oratorical talent, though perhaps not more so than many others have before and since. He entered at Harvard in 1827, while Sumner was a sophomore, and Dr. Holmes and his celebrated twenty-niners were in their junior year. His college life was a dream of wonder-land. Rich, gifted, full of good-humor, handsome in form and feature, a brilliant scholar, he seemed above all others to be Fortune's favored child. Work was easy to him, and his play was the sport of genius. He was everywhere among the first; president of the Porcellian Club, president and orator of the Hasty Pudding Club--the Apollo Belvedere of his classmates. He also belonged to a society called "The Owls," which only met at midnight, and the one who could control his face so as to look most like an owl was considered the best fellow.

Yet in the midst of this happiness, like the Hindoo prince, the spirit of sadness comes over him when he reflects that very few are so fortunate as himself, and that a great many seem to be born to positive misfortune. The change in him was so marked that his classmates took notice of it and attributed it to too much of a religious interest; but it was not that. He accepted religion as he found it, and lived and died in the faith of his ancestors. What is called a religious experience never came to him; but from this time forward he showed an especial tenderness and consideration for unfortunate people. It is well we bear this trait of his character in mind, for it is the interpretation of the various phases of his career.

He studied law, but does not appear to have ever taken a serious interest in it. Sumner, on the contrary, became a shining light in the law-school, and there laid the solid foundation of his future eminence.

Looking back at the past, we see now how the lives of these two men diverged. In tact and readiness, in mental gifts, and fineness of nature, Phillips was slightly the superior of Sumner, but Sumner easily surpassed him in greatness of design. Phillips wished to be an orator, and afterwards confessed that at this period of his life his admiration for Webster knew no legitimate bounds. But oratory is an art which requires a liberal profession for its basis; and Webster and Sumner became orators by virtue of their profession. An orator merely as such is simply an actor, and it requires a strong and well-balanced character to withstand the temptations of the stage and the platform. Wendell Phillips afterwards found a basis for his oratory in the anti-slavery conflict; and then, when that came to an end, his occupation was gone. It is also to be doubted if he had the right sort of intellect to make a lawyer of, though no man could be better qualified in other respects for practice in the courts.

Although one of his professors predicted a term in Congress for him, he did not obtain any clients for several years; which is more remarkable as there could have been no question in regard to his capacity or popularity. Another strange fact is that when he went to Europe and asked Judge Story for letters-of-introduction, he failed to obtain them; while Sumner, who was Story's favorite, was presented a few days later with more than a dozen. Had Judge Story already discovered a centrifugal and uncontrollable element in the man?

It is difficult to understand, at this distance, the persecution of the early abolitionists. They were the most harmless and inoffensive of men, and the spirit in which they approached the slavery question, and the arguments they used in regard to it, were like those by which the Christian Church obtained the abolition of serfdom in Europe. They were the most purely Christian people of their time; certainly much better Christians than those ministers of the gospel who denounced them as disturbers of a hollow peace. So Suetonius speaks of the Christians as being disturbers of the peace, and Tacitus, like a late writer in the "Atlantic Monthly," refers to them as enemies of society.

It is true they finally became narrow-minded, intolerant, and almost misanthropic, as always happens when a small minority are fatally enclosed within an unfriendly community; but they were not so in the beginning. Their methods were mild and pacific: they wished to influence public-opinion, and even hoped to persuade the slaveholders to assist in general emancipation. That the slave-holder should have been somewhat irritated at this suggestion to part with so much valuable property is not surprising; but why should it have disturbed their neighbors in Massachusetts and Connecticut where the question of free and slave labor had been agitated forty years before, and satisfactorily settled? The same speakers who harangued against the abolitionists, would say in the next breath that it was contrary to democratic principles for people in one section of the country to concern themselves about the affairs of those in another. Was it an inherited public tendency from the spirit of intolerance which formerly persecuted the Quakers? However that may be, it is an historical fact that great social reformers always have begun in a similar manner, and their importance can fairly be measured by the violence and duration of the opposition to them.

Wendell Phillips did not at first take an interest in the anti-slavery cause. The abolitionists were not personally known to him, and his mind was largely occupied with the pleasures of fashionable society, where he shone before all others. There was a certain strength and good sense in this; the reserve of a man who waits for opportunity, and who does not risk shipwreck at the start by rushing hastily into troubled waters. In October 1837, he was married to Miss Mary Anna Green, the daughter of Benjamin Green of Boston, and cousin, or other near relative, to Mrs. Maria Chapman, a friend of Harriet Martineau and other English philanthropists. In November occurred the riot at Alton, Illinois, and the assassination of Lovejoy. Dr. Channing's first petition for an indignation-meeting in Faneuil Hall was refused by the authorities; but a second and more urgent one was granted: evidently with the anticipation that the anti-slavery people might, after all, find themselves in a minority.

As it happened, the audience was nearly divided between the two parties, but the pro-slavery faction, led by government officials, had the advantage of being able to make all the noise and disturbance they wished without being interfered with by the police for it. It seemed as if the meeting would end in confusion and a vote of disagreement. Twenty-five years later Wendell Phillips said of it: "I went there without the least intention of making a speech or taking any part in the proceedings. My wife and Mrs. Chapman wished to go, and I accompanied them. I remember wearing a long surtout, a brand-new one, with a small cape (as was the fashion of the day), and after the attorney-general made his speech denouncing Lovejoy as a fool, I suddenly felt myself inspired, and tearing off my overcoat, started for the platform. My wife seized me by the arm, half terrified, and said, 'Wendell, what are you going to do?' I replied, 'I am going to _speak_, if I can make myself heard.'" The uproar was so great that the chairman asked Dr. Channing if he could stand thunder; but the personal beauty and intrepidity of Phillips,--coming like a meteor out of the night,--so surprised all hearers, that they paused to listen to him, and were so charmed by his eloquence that they neglected to make any further disturbance. The attorney-general was wholly discomfited, and Dr. Channing's resolutions were carried by a substantial majority.

It is surprising that so thorough an historian as Von Holst should have omitted to make mention of this speech, which really struck the key-note of the anti-slavery movement from first to last. As we have it now, revised by its author from the newspaper reports of the time, it is one of the purest, most spontaneous and magnetic pieces of oratory in existence. It deserves a place beside those two famous speeches of James Otis and Patrick Henry which ushered in the war of separation from England. It possesses even a certain advantage, in the fact that it never has been nor is likely to be made use of for school declamations. It will always remain fresh, vigorous, and original as when it was first delivered.

But Phillips was not content merely with silencing the opposition. He claimed that the cause for which he spoke, and for which the meeting had been called, was one of higher importance than any that had preceded it in Faneuil Hall. When the audience murmured at this, he boldly continued: "Insomuch as _thought_ is better than _money_, is the cause for which Lovejoy died superior to that for which our ancestors contended. James Otis thundered within these walls when the king did but touch his pocket; imagine his indignant eloquence if they had attempted to put a gag upon his lips." For this statement, if for nothing else, Wendell Phillips deserves an immortality in the history of his country.

With such an achievement at the age of twenty-six, what might not have been expected of his maturer years,--of the full fruition of his genius? What but a future candidate for the senate of the United States, or even for the presidency? The full fruition of his genius, the development that nature intended for him, never was realized. It is true, he accomplished much, and was in himself even more,--but by no means what he might have been. Even in the first hour of success, the temptation comes to us which determines our future destiny in one way or another.

The two ladies were of course delighted at his triumph, and overwhelmed him with congratulations; but Mrs. Chapman, "the born duchess", as she was called, saw instantly what an advantage would accrue to the small band of abolitionists from the alliance of this able young aristocrat, with his suddenly revealed gift. That evening she used all the arts of persuasion to induce him to relinquish his profession and cast his fortune to sink or swim on the broad ocean of reform. She argued that Webster and Everett had the field; that years must elapse before he could win equality with those veterans; while as an anti-slavery orator, a fresh field would be open to his genius, in which he would meet with no competitor. The hour only waited for the man, and what a glorious reward to have finally secured--the freedom of a whole race! Unhappily this coincided with a natural inclination in Phillips, of which we have already spoken, and a few days later he decided to follow her advice.

One could heartily wish that the born duchess had left Wendell Phillips to work out his own salvation. It is hardly the sign of a strong character for a man to be guided in the choice of a profession by feminine counsel; but he was still young, tender-hearted, and susceptible, and if left to himself might have escaped the impending danger. It was a temptation at once to his ambition as an orator and the latent heroism in him,--his disposition to self-sacrifice. His law practice was not satisfactory, and he could not look forward to immediate success in that direction--especially since the Faneuil Hall meeting.

Much better however for him to have gone patiently forward in the path already cleared by Webster and Everett, until, fully equipped in experience and maturity, he could have carried his anti-slavery principles into the arena of practical politics and become a leader in the House of Representatives, or have stood by Sumner in the Senate. A woman can hardly be expected to understand the long-drawn persistent struggle by which a man rises to the top of his profession; but it seems as if Mrs. Chapman might have been more considerate of the fortune and prospects of this young Apollo, himself of more value than many negroes. He did not properly belong with the abolitionists. They always felt so. They were excellent people, stainless in thought and in action, but limited in education and ability. Men of the highest mental endowments naturally form a class by themselves, though not an exclusive one. If Phillips had consulted John Quincy Adams on the subject, he would have been answered with a "No" such as might have been heard across Court Street.

His life was now as much changed as if spring had suddenly been succeeded by winter. It was like a penitential pilgrimage. He had inherited from his father a moderate property upon which he and his wife, who was already much of an invalid, could live in a moderate way. He resided for a time in Florence, Massachusetts, and then purchased a small house in Essex Street, Boston, which has since been torn down to make room for the extension of Harrison Avenue. It was a house of very small dimensions, such as is commonly occupied by a mechanic's family; but possessed the advantage of admitting as much sunshine as possible into Mrs. Phillips' lonely chamber, which was probably his reason for selecting it. He wished to live economically in order to save money for the cause of freedom, and also for private charities.

The number of persons whom he assisted in the course of his life may be called countless; and he was even too careful in preventing a knowledge of this from being made public. He selected for his motto the Latin sentence which he had translated while at school, "Phocian always remained poor, though he might have been very rich." His fashionable friends deserted from him in a body, and old family acquaintances passed him in the street without recognition. The only society he had was his wife and Mrs. Chapman and the families of the few abolitionists who lived in Boston. He was as careful of his diet, exercise, and sleep, as a trainer is in regard to a race-horse; and was rewarded for this with the most magnificent health. In all things he illustrated the words of the poet:--

"The hero is not fed on sweets; Daily his own heart he eats: The chambers of the great are jails And head winds right for royal sails."

He never lost an opportunity of speaking on the slavery question. He joined the corps of lyceum-lecturers, and soon won the first place among them. If they would listen to him on slavery, or "Toussaint L'Ouverture," his lecture was free; otherwise it must be paid for. No one else did so much to arouse public consideration in regard to this great evil, as the conservative Webster had already designated it. All through the northern states, wherever the railroads went, there Wendell Phillips was also, exhorting the people with burning words, and warning especially the farmers and laboring classes that free and slave labor could not exist together, and unless the negroes were emancipated they would ultimately become enslaved themselves.

Stumping New England, it was said, made Wendell Phillips an orator; and that, after all, was the right name for it. It was refined and elegant as could be, but still stump-oratory. It became so inevitably from the nature of the case, and in one sense this is to his credit, for it would seem to prove that he cared more for the cause than for his own reputation. He never attained to the well-considered architectural oratory of Webster and Burke, though in his best period he sometimes came very close to this, but neither did he speak to the House of Commons, nor before a bench of judges. Nothing is more fatiguing to untrained minds than a consistent and elaborate argument; and the mixed character of Phillips' speeches, like a bonfire made out of all inflammable materials, was remarkably well suited to the audiences whom he addressed. It is said that even Burke often emptied the benches, as if his associates in parliament did not appreciate him so well as those who now enjoy reading his works.

An artist who draws with a free hand, will be able to develop his talent to its full extent, but one who draws in a cramped or false manner will always suffer more or less from the effects of it; but this was not the worst of the matter. Self-control does much for the artist, but unprejudiced criticism is also necessary. This Phillips never could obtain. There were persons who judged him impartially, but he was not in the way of obtaining their opinions. He was surrounded by a small band of adherents who praised him without discrimination, and who fiercely repelled the attacks of those who found fault with him. The newspapers all took sides against him, for both political parties dreaded the agitation of the slavery question, and Phillips could rarely look into one of them without meeting with a savage attack on himself by some subaltern who knew of no better use for his quill than the manufacture of these venomous darts. Neither could he walk through the streets of Boston without hearing himself cursed and execrated. Meanwhile Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. L. Maria Child extolled him to the skies. Faithful and undistorted picture of himself he could meet with nowhere.

We read of saintly characters who have endured persecution with Christian humility and resignation, who have blessed those who cursed them, and loved those who hated them; but how many such have we been personally acquainted with? If we except Desdemona there are none in the great dramatists. It is an excellent principle, this of returning good for evil; but is it not also true that nature has planted hatred in us as a protection against future imposition? There may be such personages, but Wendell Phillips was not one of them.