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Wendell Phillips Wendell Phillips “THE CHINAMAN WORKS CHEAP BECAUSE HE IS A BARBARIAN AND SEEKS GRATIFICATION OF ONLY THE LOWEST, THE MOST INEVITABLE WANTS.”1 For the white abolitionists, this was a class struggle rather than a race struggle. It would be quite mistaken for us to infer, now that the civil war is over and the political landscape has 1. Here is what was said of the Phillips family in Nathaniel Morton’s NEW ENGLAND’S MEMORIAL (and this was while that illustrious family was still FOB!): HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS shifted, that the stereotypical antebellum white abolitionist in general had any great love for the welfare of black Americans. White abolitionist leaders knew very well what was the source of their support, in class conflict, and hence Wendell Phillips warned of the political danger from a successful alliance between the “slaveocracy” of the South and the Cotton Whigs of the North, an alliance which he termed “the Lords of the Lash and the Lords of the Loom.” The statement used as the title for this file, above, was attributed to Phillips by the news cartoonist and reformer Thomas Nast, in a cartoon of Columbia facing off a mob of “pure white” Americans armed with pistols, rocks, and sticks, on behalf of an immigrant with a pigtail, that was published in Harper’s Weekly on February 18, 1871. There is no reason to suppose that the cartoonist Nast was failing here to reflect accurately the attitudes of this Boston Brahman — as we are well aware how intensely uncomfortable this man was around any person of color. HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS 1811 November 29, Friday: Wendell Phillips was born in Boston as a descendant of that municipality’s 1st mayor. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 29 of 11 M 1811// The day has passed as usual, the mind susceptible of tender impressions - E W Lawton is consider’d some better - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH. Wendell Phillips “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS 1822 Lemuel Shaw, with few precedents to guide him, drew up a charter for Boston, which would stand until 1913. Boston transformed itself from a town into a city by adopting this new charter and proceeding to elect a mayor. Their 1st mayor would be John Phillips, Wendell Phillips’s father (Wendell himself was in this year graduating from the Boston Latin School. ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL; ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE INSISTED THAT ALL TRUTH IS SPECIFIC AND PARTICULAR (AND WRONG WHEN HE CHARACTERIZED TRUTH AS A GENERALIZATION). Wendell Phillips “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS 1831 Wendell Phillips would graduate in this year from Harvard College and go on to Harvard Law School. “HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE. May 3, Tuesday: Zampa, ou La fiancee de marbre, an opera comique by Ferdinand Herold to words of Melesville, was performed for the initial time, at the Theatre de Ventadour, Paris. Wendell Phillips submitted a college requirement “Some beautiful results to which are led by the Differential Calculus in the development of Functions” (21 ¼ x 28 ¾ inches) that is still on file at Harvard College: <http:/ /oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~hua17004> Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 3 of 5 M / Today was sub committee Meeting. The number present was small as it usually is the Meeting previous to the General committee. — enough however met to transact the buisness necessary to be done - & brotherly & sisterly love seemed Wendell Phillips “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS prevalent. - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION. Wendell Phillips “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS 1833 August: Dr. James Cowles Prichard pioneered “the term monomania, meaning madness affecting one train of thought … adopted in late times instead of melancholia.” (Herman Melville’s father-in-law, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, would utilize this concept “monomania” in a legal opinion in 1844, and Melville would deploy it in MARDI AND A VOYAGE THITHER in 1849, and then in MOBY-DICK; OR, THE WHALE in 1851 as the defining characteristic of the psychology of the maimed Captain Ahab.) As what in this year would have been considered to be a prime instance of such monomania, in this year there appeared Lydia Maria Child’s infamous APPEAL IN FAV OR OF THAT CLASS OF AMERICANS CALLED AFRICANS. (The author’s “madness affecting one train of thought” was immediately recognized, and in an attempt at a cure her library privileges at the Boston Athenæum were summarily revoked.) The Reverend William Ellery Channing walked down to Child’s cottage from his home on Beacon Hill, a mile and a half, to discuss the book with her for all of 3 hours, but not because he agreed with her — the Reverend Channing considered Child misguided and a zealot. Child later commented that she had “suffered many a shivering ague-fit in attempting to melt, or batter away the glaciers of his prejudices.” The window of William HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS Davis Ticknor’s Old Corner Bookstore was smashed because this APPEAL was on display. Having overheard his parents discussing APPEAL (and perhaps having heard of that smashed window at the Old Corner Bookstore, which had been smashed by someone leaning against or being shoved against it), the 11-year-old Edward Everett Hale considered heaving a stone at it through the shop window. This is the book that a manager of the American Bible Society refused to read for fear it would make him an abolitionist, and in fact it would be what the 22-year-old Wendell Phillips would be reading just as he was abandoning the practice of law in order to devote his life to abolitionism. HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS Here is the cover of a modern edition of that offending treatise: Outspoken in her condemnation of slavery, Mrs. Child pointed out its contradiction with Christian teachings, and described the moral and physical degradation it brought upon slaves and owners alike — not omitting to mention the issue of miscegenation, and not excepting the North from its share of responsibility for the system. “I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken,” she wrote in the Introduction, “but though I expect ridicule and censure, it is not in my nature to fear them.” As a direct result of this, she would lose her editorial post with The Juvenile Miscellany (if you are so impolite and inconsiderate that you mention that we routinely molest our black servants, we certainly cannot allow you to have contact with our children). HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS, FOR HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS INSTANCE, IN 1833, THAT A CONCEPT “MONOMANIA” WOULD BE UTILIZED IN A LEGAL OPINION IN 1844, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET — AS OF 1833, 1844 DID NOT EXIST. HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS 1834 Wendell Phillips, with no intention whatever of practicing law, was admitted to the bar. YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS. Wendell Phillips “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX WENDELL PHILLIPS WENDELL PHILLIPS November 7, Tuesday, 1837: In a speech, Waldo Emerson demonstrated that he was not yet ready for the slavery issue.2 Horace Mann, Sr. accepted the offer of the hospitality of the Emerson family to reside with them while in Concord to attend a school convention. The abolitionist publisher Reverend Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed in Alton, Illinois with a gun in his hand, 2. Gougeon, Len. “Abolition, The Emersons, and 1837.” New England Quarterly 54 (1981): 345-64 “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar” Gougeon details Emerson’s involvement (or lack thereof) with the abolition movement in the years preceding his first antislavery speech delivered in November 1837. Gougeon initially focuses on the interest of Emerson’s own family in promoting freedom for the blacks: Emerson’s sister Mary and his stepfather the honored Reverend Ezra Ripley were actively “involved in the antislavery agitation of the 1830s and 1840s,” the latter consistently supporting the movement until his death in 1841. But the strongest proponent in Emerson’s family was his younger brother Charles, with whom Emerson maintained a close relationship. As early as April 1835 Charles publicly declared his opposition to slavery, delivering in Concord a speech, “Lecture on Slavery.” It was Emerson’s wife, however, who exerted the greatest influence on her husband, for she was “one of [the] most active members from the outset” of the Women’s Anti-Slavery Society.
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