There is a certain artistic perfection in the contrasts of his life.
Thirty-seven years after his Lovejoy speech, he appeared again in
Faneuil Hall attended by a retinue of government employees, with intent
to capture a meeting called to protest against the interference of the
government at Washington in Louisiana politics. There was wrong no doubt
on both sides of this question, but the interference of the government
was equally illegal and injudicious. Phillips appeared now more on the
side of the oppressor than for the oppressed, and though his speech was,
as formerly, the best of the occasion, it failed to win the sympathy of
the audience. He was consistent in his devotion to the interests of the
freed, men, but he would have been more true to himself if he had been
willing to recognize, as the more reasonable anti-slavery people did,
how absurd and even abominable, were the negro governments in the
southern states; but he had long since lost his good judgment, and when
President Hayes removed the troops for whose maintenance he could obtain
no appropriation from Congress, and the pyramid which had been so long
supported on its apex suddenly fell over, Phillips could scarcely find
terms harsh enough to express his rage and exasperation. His attacks on
the Hayes administration might fairly be called philippics had they
possessed the saving grace of Hellenic self-control, but they remind us
rather of Carlyle's furious "Latter Day Pamphlets.
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