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But Phillips endured the storm like a man. He argued his case with all
the ardor and energy of his nature, but there escaped from him not one
opprobrious or resentful sentence towards his former associates. Emerson
said (to quote him again, and we hope for the last time): "How
handsomely Mr. Phillips has behaved in his controversy with Mr.
Garrison. In fact Phillips was the same we have always known him." But
the wound went deep into him; and seven years later, when he said at the
Radical Club, "I have known cases in which it only took _one_ to
make a quarrel," we all recognized what he was thinking of.
This was the acme of his career, and alas! how soon he fell away from
it. About a year before this time, his friends began to notice certain
expressions in his speeches which puzzled them not a little. At length a
severe and unjust attack on Senator Wilson as a frequenter of
drinking-saloons explained the new departure to them. Phillips was
evidently taking a hand in practical politics, and as Wilson's term was
nearly expiring, wished to make General Butler his successor. So
strangely are good and evil united in us, that this happened about the
same period as the Garrison controversy. The less said about General
Butler perhaps the better. At the same time Wendell Phillips' support of
him would seem to be no worse than Judge Hoar's continued support of
Blaine for the presidency; and it is also true that General Butler's
reputation was better at this time than it afterwards became; he was
well received at the political clubs, and even considered in the light
of a presidential candidate by prominent republicans.
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