Historical Profile: Wendell Phillips


Boston, MA.- Wendell Phillips (1811 – 1884) was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Phillips attended the Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard University (1831) and Harvard Law School (1833).  Phillips was an abolitionist, lawyer, and an advocate for women’s rights and Native American rights. 


Phillips helped organize the Massachusetts Indian Commission with Helen Hunt Jackson and Massachusetts governor William Claflin.  Phillips was also a member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.


In 1845, Phillips wrote an essay titled “No Union With Slaveholders.”  Phillips wrote the following paragraph in one part of the essay:


“The experience of the fifty years…shows us the slaves trebling in numbers – slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government – prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere – trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools.  To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness.  The trial of fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery.  Why prolong the experiment?  Let every honest man join in the outcry of the American Anti-Slavery Society.”


There is a monument dedicated to Wendell Phillips located in the Boston Public Garden.  The monument was built in 1915.  The front of the monument reads: “Whether in chains or in laurels liberty knows nothing but victories: Wendell Phillips 1881-1884 – Prophet of Liberty; Champion of the Slave.”



Wendell Phillips statue in the Boston Public Garden.

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