Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

There was another charge brought against them,--it was, that they had no reverence for dignitaries. The friend who sits here on my right (Mrs. Southwick) dared to rebuke a slaveholder with a loud voice, in a room just before, if not then, consecrated by the presence of Chief Justice Shaw, and the press was astonished at her boldness. I hope, though she has left the city, she has left representatives behind her who will dare rebuke any slave-hunter, or any servant of the slave-power, with the same boldness, frankness, and defiance of authorities, and contempt of parchment.

Then there was another charge brought against their meetings, that they indulged in exceedingly bold language about pulpits and laws and wicked magistrates. That is a sin which I hope will not die out. God grant we may inherit that also.

I should like to know very much how many there are in this hall to-day who were out in the street, as actual mobocrats, twenty years ago. I know there are some here who signed the various petitions to the City Government to prevent the meeting from being held; but it would be an interesting fact to know how many are here to-day, actually enlisted under the antislavery banner, who tore that sign to pieces. I wish we had those relics; the piece of that door which was long preserved, the door so coolly locked by Charles Burleigh,--it was a touching relic. We ought to have a portion of that sign which the Mayor threw down as a tub to the whale, hoping to save some semblance of his authority,--hoping the multitude would be satisfied with the sign, and spare the women in this hall,--forgetting that a mob is controlled only by its fears, not by pity or good manners.