Morning journal and courier., 1884-02-04

l Wendell Phillips was direct descendan 1 of the Phillipses whose name is so cIosel, | identified with the history of Massachusetts 1 hls father, John Phillips, being the firs l mayor of Boston, unto whom Wendell wal born November 29, 1911. During his youth he was an earnest student of all theories con. nected with the training of animals and his earliest inclinations led him to the study ol ! chemistry. In difference, however, to his mothers wishes he studied law and after graduating from Harvard college at the age of twenty, he entered the Cambridge Law school and completed the two years course. Events that occurred while he was a member Of the Boston bar determined his career as an agitator. In October, 1885, he sat in bis office and heard noise in tho street and he went down to find what made it. There he saw a thousand men in broad cloth dragging William Lloyd Garrison along with rope round his waist. His young soul. fired with the spirit of mans personal rights,
 rebelled against such an outrage. The
 young man of twenty-four, with a great,
 proud family; with social position higher
 than most men attain at twenty-four, with
 ambition and hope, then and there cast his
 lot with the anti slavery people. At once he
 began battling for the cause of his adoption,
 seizing every chance to bring the matter
 home to the intellect of the people with
 the aid of God, {" said he, T will set every
 person meet to thinking on the subject of
 slavery" But his idea of the constitution
 which he denounced as t'A covenant with death and league with hell, because, as he
 held with William Lloyd Garrison, contrary to Charles Sumner, tho constitution warrant ed slavery, cost him his position at the bar
 because be would not take the necessary oath to support it.
 It the year 1887 the Rev. E. r. Loveioy.
 editor of small journal at Alton, H., on the M1sslsslppl river, opposite 10 the Missouri HEA, h~I d. tlon of slavery-was attacked by @ pro-slav- cry crowd, and, while defending his printing press, was fatally shot. Many advocates of free speech in Boston, headed by Rev. Hen ry William Charming, asked for the use of Faneuil Hall for public meeting at which to express their diSapprobation of the occur renee. The request was refused and meet ing was held in the old court room. After pr. Charming had denounced the murder of Lovejoy." MT. James T. Austin, the Attorney General, spoke, com pairing slaves to menagerie of wild beasts and the Alton murderers to an orderly mob" which threw the tea over board in Boston harbor in l773, declared Lovejoy,a 8 presumptuous fool and pronounced Dr. Charming, as clergyman, to be marvel. lously out of place. Wendell Phillips, a stranger in the mixed and disorderIy gather ing, went upon the stage and offered to speak. The excited crowd would not hear OuOuon1y au OlO, well known m0E- chant rose and said to the crowd that this was young man who belonged to the family of Phillpses. The name was a charm. Old, historical, honored and provincial, it gave to the young man the compliment of quiet at tsntion. He at once began in modest way to criticise the Attorney General and the crowd that had applauded him. The crowd at once interrupted him, but he waited and per- sisted and i'll 8 speech of marvellous force pronounced two of the most powerful and elegant periods in our language ''Sir, said he, "when I heard the gentleman lay down pRaciples which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock,
 with Quincy and Adams, I thought these pie tured lips, (pointing to the portraits in the hall) would have broken into voice to rebuks the Eecreant AmeIican-the slanderer of the dead. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puri- tsns and blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up."
 The crowd menaced him, but he would not desist, and he declared that he would not take back his words. He sat down amid great applause, carrying the resolutions which had been offered against the murder era of Loveioy. Wendell Phillips reputa- ton was made. He left that hall the first orator in America. From that day he was everywhere sought, and from that day he has been almost continually before the public as 8 lecturer.
 MT. Phillips did not confine his exertions to the crusade against slavery. He was the ready champion of every cause that he held to be proper. The temperance reform ever found him steady, an able and a.most con- sistent supporter. He went with the advo- cates of the rights of women. All other causes that were worthy of his advocacy commanded MT. Phillips support. He WAS l warm supporter of the Greenbaek cause, and 1 ably advocated every measure tending to bet | ter the condition of the laborer. He was | always found on the side of the weak and the i oppressed.