ABSTRACT
Wendell Phillips grew up in an atmosphere of cultural sufficiency. With Faneuil Hall as his headquarters, and with every lecture room in the North packed on his arrival, he was able to broadcast his denunciations and exhortations to his eager Northern audiences. More than any other man of his generation, he fought for social reforms and exercised his golden voice and irrefutable logic in behalf of the common good. After a pleasant and instructive sojourn in Europe during the years 1839–1841, in the vain hope of relieving his wife’s increasing invalidism, he returned to this country eager to further the anti-slavery movement. When President Abraham Lincoln finally decided to make public his Emancipation Proclamation, heralding the end of Negro slavery in the United States, the great Agitator rejoiced in the certainty of victory. When William Lloyd Garrison insisted in 1865 that the American Anti-Slavery Society had achieved its purpose and should disband, Phillips replaced him as president of the organization.
