Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero

THREE: Career Despair and Marriage of Hope

THREE Career Despair and Marriage of Hope As Wendell Phillips began the study of law, he looked on his choice as the least unattractive of surprisingly few alternatives. Family traditions did not permit him to follow LothropMotley and Edmund Quincy as they became gentlemanly writers, living on family wealth. Phillips felt no attraction to the ministry either, unlike his elder brother John Charles, who had graduatedfrom Andover Seminary and now held apastorate . Perhaps John Charles himself had contributed to his brother's lack of interest, for while Wendell was in college, John Charles, in long letters, had witnessed to the true faith and pleaded with his brother to be "born again in Christ." Often he had exhorted Wendell. "I address you on the supposition that you know the truth," he wrote. "I will expect you to answer me as soon as convenient—do not decide hastily, but count the cost well.'" Wendell, who since the age of fourteen had considered his spiritual estate in good hands, certainly resented his brother's paternalistic sermons, finding in them the sectarian arrogance with which he was soon to charge the orthodox clergy who opposed abolition. Phillips' eldest brother, Thomas, understood far better than did John Charles the narrow range of vocations that Wendell and many other i. Bartlett, Phillips, 16, John Charles Phillips to Phillips, February i, December 18, 1830, Blagden Papers. 36 CAREER DESPAIR AND MARRIAGE 37 college-educated young men could pursue in the 18305. He himself had chosen the law, the traditional Phillips profession, and had been practicing with distinction in Boston for a decade. After attending a temperance convention, Thomas urged Wendell to join the movement and put his oratorical skills to practical use, "not only because it is a duty, but. . . because it is getting to be almost the only way in which a young man can recommend himself to the public." Such causes, he observed shrewdly, now seemed "to occupy the places" once held by "political parties and meetings" in launching a young man's career. Wendell, however , was not yet ready to joina movement. Instead, he followed the family path into the legal profession. George William, the brother closest to Wendell in age, was already reading law under private instruction and would soon open his own office.2 Wendell enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1831. Phillips found law uninspiring despite the magnetic presence of Joseph Story, the Supreme Court justicewho headed the law school. Story, who seemed "incapable of fatigue," usually succeeded in imparting "his own enthusiasm to his pupils." Charles Sumner, forexample, Phillips' undergraduate acquaintance, discovered in Story a teacherwho inspired like no other, andhe studied his cases with monkish concentration. Other classmates prepared for careers of distinction. Benjamin R. Curtis, for example , would sit on the Supreme Court, and George Hilliard would become one ofBoston's prominent barristers.3 But WendellPhillips, so well situated to begin a similar career, felt no similar response. He studied casually, competently, but without enthusiasm. Phillips' aimlessness soon began to reveal itself in social reclusiveness . The lion of Harvard's mens' clubs was now shy of social gatherings . Anna Quincy, daughter of Harvard's president, remarked after a chance meeting with Phillips in her parlor that his appearance, though agreeable, was "a mystery, as in general, man delights him not, nor woman either."4 Yet there is evidence that at least one woman did delight him. At one point he spent nineteen successive evenings in the Tremont Theatre, glassy eyed and riveted to his seat as the beautiful and accomplished English actress Fanny Kemble performed on stage. Here 2. Thomas W.Phillips to Phillips,n.d. [early 18305], Blagden Papers. 3. Arthur E. Sutherland, The Law at Harvard: A History of Men and Ideas, 181-7-1967 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967], 92-140; Donald, Sumner and the Coming of the War,22-18. 4. Bartlett, Phillips, 27-28; Donald, Sumner and the Coming of the War,24. 38 WENDELL PHILLIPS was a woman Phillips could fantasize about without risking any of the embarrassments possible in Anna Quincy's parlor.He remembered those evenings in the theater in detail, even up to the year before he died; he wrote in 1883 ofhow he and other students "literally sold whatever they could lay their hands on," including law books, in order to purchase tickets. They saved money for more tickets by walking rather than riding to and from Boston...