Phillips'
subsequent explanation of the matter was, that the negro was his client,
and General Butler was the only person who had the will and ability to
manage his case. He was not inconsistent in this, for he afterwards
supported General Grant in the machine governments at the south for the
same reason.
Another bond of mutual interest between them was socialism. When or
where Phillips became a socialist is uncertain. He was conservative in
religion, and there is no more necessary connection between the
abolition of slavery and socialism than between socialism and
free-trade. On the contrary, the votes of the Irish laborers, who now
divided his interest with the negroes, had always been the chief bulwark
and mainstay of the slave power in the northern states. It must however,
have been a question of principle with him, a theory of abstract right,
for the course and conduct of his whole life is a true witness against
any meaner motive. But General Butler's socialism was doubtless a matter
of personal ambition--a bait to catch the popular vote. Nobody except
Phillips, not even the laborers themselves, imagined anything else in
his case. [Footnote: In the autumn of 1884 my brother asked a plumber
then working for him, if he intended to vote for General Butler, who was
presidential candidate that year for the labor-party. "No," replied the
fellow, "Butler is a bad man; he will do for Governor of Massachusetts,
but for President of the United States we want something different.
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