Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1884 — A NOTED MAN GOIE. [ARTICLE]

A NOTED MAN GOIE.

Wendell Phillipe, the Hoted Onto: anc Agitator, Joins the Silent Majority. The Distinguished Patient Conscious to the Last—Biographical Sketch. Wendell Phillips, the “silver-tongued orai tor,” is dead. After an agonizing Illness he expired peacefully st his home In Boston on the 2d of February. Mr. Phillips was sick for < sevefi days with angina pectoris, a disease to | which his father and two brothers succumbed. | His last publlo address, at the unveiling of Harriet Martlneau's statue, a month before, had been a severe tax upon him, and be seemed to feel keenly the waning of his physical and mental powers. Mr. Phillips had had one or two Intimations of heart trouble, so that the final attack was hardly a surprise to himself or family. He was conscious through it all, but he realized a day or two ago that it was an unequal struggle, and told his physicians that he should die. When it became evident that his life could not be spared, the physicians devoted their energies simply to rendering more peaceful his last hours. During the more severe attacks of pain he was kept partially under the influence of anesthetics, but his suffering was still great. Gradually be sank lower, keeping consciousness to the last. His invalid wife and other members of his family were about the bed during the last hours, and he recognized them aIL He spoke but little, and his last words—about a matter of personal comfort—were spoken about half an hour before the end came. Wendell Phillips was born in Boston, Nov. 39, 1811. His father wus John Phillips, the first Mayor of Boston. Wendell graduated at Harvard College In 1831, at tho law sohool in 1833, and was admitted to the bar in 1834. Three years after beginning the practioq of his profession in his native city ho became known to the publlo as an eloquent advooate of the anti-slavery, temperance, and wora- ; an's-riglits reforms, then being earnestly agitated, and continued his Indefatigable labors during the conflict of oplnlou on the slavery question which preceded the civil war. In 1838 he became a Garrison Abolitionist, having been a warm admirer of Garrison and an enthusiast on tho untl-slavory question for mauy years. Bo strong wore his convictions on the slavery question that In 1839 he relinquished law practice from unwillingness to observe tho oath of fealty to tho Fodorul Constitution.

His first notable speech was made in Faneuil Hall, In December, 1887. F,. P. Lovejoy had been murdered by a mob at Alton, 111., where he was publishing a paper of the most radical anti-slavery opinions. Dr. Channing, of Boston, had called an Indignation meeting at Faneull Hail. Janies T. Austin, tho Attorney General of the State of Massachusetts, apologized for the bloody deed of the mob, and said that Lovejoy was presumptuous pnd imprudent, and that “ho died as the fool dieth.” Wendell Phillips, then a young man fresh from colleno, replied to the vindicator of mob violence. “ Followoitizens," raid he, “is this Faneull Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton wore met to wrest from a citizen bis just rights—met to resist the laws. We have been told that our {fathers did the same, and the glorious mantle 'of Revolutionary precodont has boon thrown over the mobs of our day! Sir, when I beard the gentleman lay down principles, whloh place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to tho portraits in the ball] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderor of the dead. [Great sensation and applause.] Tho gentleman said that he should sink into significance if he dared to gainsay tho principles of those resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated by the prayers of puritans and the blood of patriots, tho earth should have yawned and swallowed him. James Otis thundered In this hall, when the King d.dbut touch his pookot. Imagine, If you can, his indignant eloquence had England offered to put a gag upon his lips.” From that time till 1881 Mr. Phillips was a prominent leader and tho most popular orator of the abolitionists. He advocated disunion as the only road to abolition until the opening of the civil war, after which he sustained the Government for a similar reason. In 1863-4 he advocated arming, educating, and enfranchising tho freedmon, and for the two latter purposes procured the contlnuanoe of the Anti-Slavery Society till after theadoj>tion of the fifteenth amendment in 1881). Probably the last public act of Mr. Phillips was to write, the day before he died, a letter to Rev. Dr. Miner, urging that ho and all other friends of humanity go to the Superior court at Worcester the next day and urge that a light sentence be imposed on Burnham Ward well, “tho prisoners’ friend," who was to be sentenced on that day for uttering a criminal libel on the Sheriff of that county. The letter was written against the protest of Mr. Phillips’ physician, who said that even so slight an exertion might result fatally. The singular fact that Mrs. Phillips survives her husband excites much comment. When they were married about thirty years ago, she was a hopeless Invalid, and one reason for her uniting herself to Mr. Phillips was her great desire that her fortune, which was considerable, might be devoted to the causo of anti-slavery. She expected Jo die soon and thus seal her devotion to the cause In which her affection was centered. During the ensuing years Mrs. Phillips has lingered helpless, the object of her husband’s constant love. Many touching incidents of Mr. Phillips’ attention to his wife are told!