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Show • 114 Wendell Phillips. ino-" in thi city a while ao-o. For the fir~ t time for a f)llart er n or a c ·ntury, political brutality dared to ·nter the saered nc-of' the , ick clmmbcr, and vi:;it. with ridicule the broken int:·llect, shclt ·red from critici-;m und er the CO\' Cl' of 8 i ck n e~ . . Never, since I knew Bo~ ton, has any lip, however embittered, dared. to open the door whieh God's hand had clo. ed, making the inmate sacred, as her stcd in broken health. The four thousand men who at beneath the speaker arc said to l1avc r eceived it in ilcnce. If so, it can only l>e that they were not urpri.:::ed at the brutality from uch lip~. And tho:;c who sat at his ide -they judge us l>y our a sociatc -they criticise u , in general, for the loud word of any comrade- shall we take the scholar of N 'W EnglatH1, and drag him down to the level of the brutal Swi~s of politics, and judge him ind ecent because hi· a'sociatcs were indeceut? Gladly do I . cizc the opportunity of protesting, in the name of Boston decency, against the brutal language of a man,- thank God, not born on our peninsula,- against the noble and benighted intellect of Gcrrit Smith, whom God l>lc" with n ew health. On that occasion, too, a noule i ~land was calumniated. The New England scholar, bereft of every thing els on w hieh to arraign the o-rcat movement in Virginia, takes up a lie about St. Domingo, ana hurls it in the face of an ignorant nu<licnce- ignorant, becau. c no man ever thouo·ht it \\'Orth while 0 to do ju ·tice to the negro. Edward Ever ett wouhl be the la t to allow us to take an Engli ·h version of Bunker Hill, to take an Englishman's account of IIamilton and 'Va ~ hin g ton , when they ordered the scaffold of Andre, and read it to nn American audience as a faithful de cription of the ccne. But when he wants to malign a race, he digs up from the pr<'judice of an enemy they had conquered a forgotten lie-showing how weak was the cause he espou ed, when the opposite must be as ·nilc>d with fal :'lehoocl, for it could not be a ailed with any thing cLc. I said that they had gone to sleep, and only turned in their graves- those men in Fancuil Hall. It was not wholly true. Wen de l1 Phillips. 115 The chairman came down from the heart of the Commonwealth, anti , poke to Bo~ton sa le worus in Faneuil lf all, for which he would have been lynched at Hichmontl, ltad he uttered them there that evening. 1 rejoice that a hunker cannot live in l\la ·sachu ' etts, without being wider awake than he ima gine.~ . lie mu t imbil>e fanatici m. Insurr 'ction is epidemic in the State; treason is our inheritance. The Puritans plauted it in the very structure of the State; and when th<'ir children try to curse a martyr, like the prophet of' old, hall' tl1c cur~e, at lea, t, turns into a ole ·sing. I thank God lor tltat 11Ias~achu se tts ! Let u. not blame our nei•Thl>or too mueh. There is some thing in the very atmosphere that stan(l:-; alJoye the ashes of the Puritan , that prevent::, the very most servile of hearts from holding a meeting which the de pots of Virginia can r eli h. It is a hard task to l>c servile within forly miles of Plymouth. They have not learned the part; with all their wish, they play it awkwardly. It is the old, stiff Puritan trying to bend, and they do it with a marvel lou ' lack of grace. I read encouragement in the very ~ ign s- t!tc awkward attempts made to resist this very effort of the glorious martyr of the Northern hills of N cw York. Virginia h er:-;clf looks into hi, face and melt ; . he ha nothin o- but 0 praises. She tries to scan his trait ; they are too manly, and she bows. Iler press can only speak of his manhood. One must get outside the influence of his personal preS('nce b .fore the slaves of Virginia can dig up a forgotten ICan as lie, and hurl it against the picture which Virginian admiration has painted. That does not come from Viro-inia. Northern men 0 volunteer to do the work which Virginia, lifted for a moment by the ight of martyrdom, is unable to accomplish. A N ewburyport man comes to Bo ·ton, and says that he knows tJohn Brown was at the ma acre of Pottawattomic. lie was only twenty-five miles off! The N cwburyport orator ge t~ witlti n thirty miles of the trutl1, and that is very n car - for him ! But Virginia was unable- mark you!- Virginia was unable |