"
He achieved an equal success of a different kind soon after, in
attempting to deliver the same speech in New York city. A portion of the
hall was filled with pro-slavery roughs who cursed and reviled him, and
threw various missiles at him. A stone which struck a chair near him on
the platform might have done him very serious injury. Nothing dismayed,
he continued his speech, and taking his text from the insults of his
enemies, hurled defiance back in their teeth. His friends who
accompanied him and were ready to defend him from personal violence,
said that on this occasion Phillips surpassed any thing they had known
of him before; and fairly quelled the mob by his courage, address, and
personal magnetism.
It was during the following eight years that Wendell Phillips proved
himself the great orator. Wasson, who never quite approved of him, said
that Webster might have excelled him, but that Choate or Everett could
not be compared with him. The largest halls could not contain the people
who wished to hear him. He was several times mobbed, and his life was in
continual danger. A body-guard of devoted young friends escorted him to
and from his house. He never ceased calling for the emancipation of the
negroes, and when that was accomplished, for their enlistment as
volunteers and a more vigorous prosecution of the war. His criticism of
public affairs was not always judicious, but it warmed the hearts of the
people and strengthened the hands of the anti-slavery party in
Washington.
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