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

[68] infamous enough in itself, but whose infamy was doubled when he broke it only to speak against the slave on the 7th of March, 1850. Three cheers for him [They were given, but so faintly, that a shout of derision went up from the whole audience.] Three cheers for the statesman who said on the steps of the Revere House that “this agitation must be put down,” and the agitationists have entered Faneuil Hall before him. [Great applause.] Three cheers for the man who could afford no better name to the Abolitionists than “rub-a-dub agitators,” till Kossuth found no method but theirs to chain the millions to himself; and then this far-sighted statesman discovered that “there were people inclined to underrate the influence of public opinion.” [Laughter.] Three cheers for the man who gave the State a new motive to send Horace Mann back to Washington, lest we should be thought guilty abroad of shocking bad taste in the old imperial tongue of the Romans. [Laughter.] Three cheers for the man--(O, I like to repeat the Book of Daniel I)--three cheers for “the Whig, the Massachusetts Whig, the Faneuil Hall Whig,” who came home to Massachusetts,--his own Massachusetts, the State he thought he owned, body and soul,--who came home to Massachusetts, and lobbied so efficiently as to secure the election of Charles Sumner to the Senate of the United States. [Loud cheers.]

[A voice: “Three cheers for Charles Sumner.” Overwhelming applause. “Three cheers for Webster.” Mr. Phillips continued:--]

Faintly given, those last; but I do not much care, Mr. Chairman, which way the balance of cheers goes in respect to the gentleman whose name has just been mentioned [Mr. Webster]. It is said, you know, that when Washington stood before the surrendering army of Cornwallis, some of the American troops, as Cornwallis came forward to surrender his sword, began, in very had taste, to cheer. The noble Virginian turned to then