The real issue in this controversy the one pressing upon every mind is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong, is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions all their arguments circle from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong. They insist that it should, as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear among us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery by spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a cancer upon your person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as a wrong.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles right and wrong- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle, in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, " You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), the orator of emancipation, was the son of the first mayor of Boston, and sprung from a line of Puritan ancestry who for six generations were college graduates. There was

no disposition on the part of this well-born youth to slight the exceptional advantages afforded him. With great natural endowments, with the best blood of New England in his veins, it would seem that no young American had brighter prospects socially, politically, and in a professional way.

Young Phillips prepared for college in the Boston Latin School, where so many distinguished New Englanders have begun their academic course. We are told that

he was first in scholarship as well as a leader in athletics during his preparatory course.

At the age of fifteen Phillips entered Harvard, where his scholarship was quite as good as in the Latin School. "Class honors," says one of his fellows, "went to him without dispute and without his seeking." His memory was prodigious, so that in subsequent years the fund of knowledge, of telling

facts and anecdotes which he classified and stored away for use, proved what years of judicious culture will do for native force. Not satisfied to pursue a prescribed course alone, he entered upon an extensive course of collateral reading, which included current literature and the political history of the day. After completing his course in the college of arts, Phillips entered the law school from which he was graduated in two years. This was supplemented by a year of travel in Europe, when he entered upon the practice of his profession.

None of the great orators had more thorough and more severe training in the art of public speaking than did Phillips. In the Boston Latin School he came under the instruction of a schoolmaster by the name of Withington, of whose instruction in elocution Phillips years afterwards spoke in the highest terms. The boys were required by this teacher to commit and recite stirring passages of poetry and eloquence. Young Phillips excelled all his fellows and was the chief attraction on declamation days. A fellow student at the Latin School writes: "What first led me to observe him and fix him in my memory was his elocution. I came to look forward to declamation day with interest on his account." It was a kind of work so absorbing to him that he would not only devote much time to the practice of speaking, but would help his young friends in the lower grades to select and prepare their declamations. Besides, no youth had better opportunities to listen to the great orators of the day. Wendell Phillips not only heard such men as Webster, Choate, Harrison Gray Otis, John Quincy Adams, and many others, but, on account of his father's official position, he frequently came into the society of these eloquent men.

Harvard boys remember Phillips as the best speaker in college. Possessed of rare conversational power and that confidence so essential to the speaker, it seemed most natural

for him to embrace hundreds within the scope of his conversation. "It was a great treat," says a Harvard classmate, "to hear him declaim a college exercise. He was always studying remarkable passages as an exercise in composition, and to secure the most expressive forms of language." His gifts were so marked that, on the occasion of the death of a fellow student, all with one voice sought Phillips to pronounce the eulogy. His gift of speaking, together with his engaging manners, contributed greatly to his popularity. There was no elective office in the gift of the students that was not open to him.

But what was Phillips doing during his college course to perfect the art of speaking? Throughout his residence at Harvard he was a member of a debating society and took active part in its meetings; but more, he was a most careful student of elocution under Dr. Jonathan Barber, then instructor at Harvard. We quote his own words from a letter to James E. Murdoch: "I had the good fortune to be Barber's pupil in a class which fully appreciated the value of his lessons. . . . Whatever I have acquired in the art of improving my voice I owe to his suggestions and lessons. . . His teaching tended to make good readers and speakers, not readers and speakers founded on Barber. It brought out each pupil's peculiar character of utterance and expression, without attempting or tending to cast him in a mold. After leaving Barber a pupil had no mannerism to rid himself of before he got full possession of his own power." Not content with his college work in public speaking, he continued his study at intervals during his career as an agitator with Professor Parkinson, a well-known trainer of the speaking voice.

So much for his education both general and special. What were some of the physical qualifications of this high product of American culture? In personal appearance his presence

filled the eye before he began to speak. His was a form and face never to be forgotten when once seen. One of his biographers speaks of him as a model in form who "closely resembled by actual measurement the Greek Apollo. He was neither stout nor thin, but retained from youth to age his suppleness and grace of proportions." In height he was five feet and eleven inches. His head was large and well-proportioned, his forehead high, his complexion fair, his eyes bluegray, deep-set, and penetrative, and his hair of a reddish-golden hue. His profile showed a nose of Roman mold, approaching the aquiline. The mouth was lion-like, the lips well rounded, and the chin, though not large, indicated great vitality and force of will. His face was frank and kindly and wore a grave and quiet expression. His erect, easy, and well-poised body indicated firmness and repose. There was the ease and selfpoise of a prince and yet the kindliness of a man of the people. Though his opinions were not always acceptable, grace of manner, beauty of person, and courtesy toward all, made him a universal favorite. It was his own expressed opinion that "in the public speaker physical advantages are half the battle."

Phillips's voice was incomparably effective. It was not so wide in range nor so powerful as Webster's or Clay's, but was more perfectly modulated in its middle compass. His high notes were light, but silvery and penetrating. It was a baritone in range, full, resonant, mellow, flutelike, so exquisite as to resemble the notes of a well-tuned violin. Such an instrument freighted with thought brought listeners into the complete domain of his influence.

Few men possessed greater personal courage. If he believed it to be his duty to speak on a certain occasion, no matter how great the peril, he did not falter. When rebuked for encountering danger which to his friends seemed wholly