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Leader (1850-1860), 6th August 1853, Edition Country of 2, Page 17

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      "A Stranger" In Parliament. "The Best Pr...

      is getting over , to suggest that senatorial orators should write their speeches and send them , unspoken , to the Times , and Daily News , and Morning Chronicle . But , at least , why does not the House come to an agreement to avoid those ludicrous trots past My . Hayter ? The farce is confessed : and ' why not therefore a common system of proxies , —or votes by telegrapher by post ? The House could then sit till September , and yet be on the Moors or the Rhine , or the Mediterranean . To keep a House , you only want 40 members j and Mr . Hayter could pick up that sacred number from the Irish patriots who vote with Keogh .

      Certainly , if a country , with not too many public amusements , cannot make up its mind to give up House of Commons oratory , which does provide us with occasional passages and parenthetical scenes that are more than amusing , we could afford to do without what are called debates in the House of Lords . Observe the proceedings last night , in that august but supererogatory assembly . The India Bill stood for a second reading , and the House was unusually fullthat is , in addition to the steady attendance of seventeen old peers , there were ten or twenty middle aged peers , and ten or twenty more quite young peers , who , you could see , by the attention they directed from the old peers to the young peeresses , were there more in compliment to ladies than to lords . That was a House collected for the revision ; of Commons legislation upon

      the government of the 150 , 000 , 000 fellow-subjects , Sir . But what did it do ? Why , it said , " Hear , hear /' when Lord Truro , wofully worn out in body and mind , talked an ancient lawyer ' s routineries on that question of the supply and demand world , which he hasn't a notion of , as it was involved in tfie Combination of Workmen Bill—just up , and in Lord Kinnaird ' s timid hands , from the Commons . Lord Truro , obeying a tendency to consult the aristocratic suspicions of the audience he always failed with , considered it a dangerous bill ; and the old-peers , middle aged peers , and young peers , who didn't know anything about the .

      matter , were ready to agree with Lord Truro—on matters they don't know anything- about , the House of Lords always agreeing to follow the grey-headed law lords , who are supposed to form a sort of link between the peers and mankind . They had no doubt whatever that the first grey-headed law lord was right when a second grey headed law lord ( the Lord Chancellor ) rose , and from similar motives and analogous ignorance abused the bill ; and the " result was , that an excellent measure , embodying a good

      principle , and promising to act as the basis for future better measures in the same direction , was thrown out ; after which the class of capitalists cannot say that the class of landowners is unsympathetic . Well , if that debate could have been prevented by an arrangement which should keep peers at , instead of in , their seats , the peers would have been , this Saturday , more popular with the democracy ; for the result , without a reason pfFered , would have been a less impertinence to the people , and to the Commons , than such a result with such

      inadequate and malapropos reasons . Then , of course , it is obvious that it would have been an advantage to the public and to the steady attendance of old lords , if such a debate as there was last night on the India bill could have been prevented . We submit without much murmuring to the Lords voting on what the Commons have voted ; but is it not too bad to the most constitutional of us to expect us to road how the Lords debated what the Commons have already exhausted ? The Commons had not left the Lords a fresh word to say on the India Bill ; and yet at the India Bill the Lords went last night , ns if the subject hud suddenly turned up , qnite now , mid there was an intense eagerness to hear nil about it . Constitutionally , tho fiction is akin to

      stage asides , that tho Lcrds never know what has passed in tho Commons ; and tho consequence of keeping up ko inHano a delusion , is tho furco which , neither to their dignity nor credit , iho Upper House , last ni ght , performed . Their Lordships might take this hint : that they lmvo only ono chnuce of prolonging , or , rather , renewing' their vitality ; and that is by getting rid of the fiction—acknowledging tho fact , and dividing the topics of the day with iho Commons ; in other words , by anticipating tho Common * one hull of itH privileges—of being interesting . This lenient British ago only requires its Governors to amiisb it ; nnd . tho Lords could bo as ludicrous as tho Cohnnony , if they would only try . A S'J'JtAN 6 lcu . 'Bulurdnr JMorniiu * .

      August 6, 1853.] The Leader. ' 761 •¦• ¦...

      August 6 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . ' 761 •¦• ¦ ¦• ¦ ¦ - ¦¦ ¦ - ¦ ' ' i ' - . .

      Wendell Phillips's Reply To '1'Jus Lette...

      WENDELL PHILLIPS'S REPLY TO ' 1 'JUS LETTERS OP " ION" ON THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY LEADERS . Tiijc reader may roinembor , that n fow months ago tlirco articles appeared in thus pliico , upon tho Anti-Slavery agitation and tho Anti-Slavery Leaders of

      America . " The War of Ideas , " the second of the three articles which appeared in Leader ^ No . 138 , was reprinted in some of the American journals , and notably in the Liberator , a celebrated Abolitionist paper , which has always followed the manly rule of quoting adverse criticisms in its own columns , —not that the article bearing the signature below was adverse ; but it was so understood , and therefore quoted in the Liberator , and replied to by Mr . Wendell Phillips , in the Boston Melodeon on January 27 th ultimo ( at the twenty-first annual meeting of the Massachusetts

      Anti-Slavery Society ) , in a speech as long as that of Mr . Gladstone ' s introducing the Budget . The American Anti-Slavery Society has published his speech from the phonographical report of J . M . W . Yerrington , and Mr . Richard Webb , of Dublin , has done the same in this country , adding to it numerous and instructive notes necessary to readers on this side the Atlantic . Mr . Wendell Phillips has a reputation of being the first speaker in the United States . Theodore Parker , no mean authority , lately said , when speaking of Edward Everett , some time since American Minister

      in England , "he ( Everett ) has an eloquence—it is surpassed only by one voice "—pointing at the same time to "Wendell Phillips . It is not possible for us either to quote , or to reply adequately to , so protracted a speech as that now in question , occupying thirty-six pages of an octavo pamphlet , and it is on this account that we have so far described the Orator and his Oration , in the hope that any who may have been in any way influenced by our view of the question , as expressed in previous articles , may be induced to obtain the speech , * and judge for themselves .

      Mr . Phillips maintains that our observations have teen answered many times . So far , however , from their being irrelevant , he appears to admit the only objections upon which we dwelt . Probably our third articlef has not come under his notice , which indeed constitutes the reply , so far as a reply is needed to Mr . Phiilips ' s present oration . Mr . Phillips ' ^ words are ( p . 5)—" Ion ' s charges are the old ones—that we Abolitionists are hurting our causc—that instead of waiting for the community to come up to our views , we fall at once , like children , to abusing- everybody and everything . "

      Again , page 12 , he remarks— " It is said that in dealing with slave-holders they ( the Abolitionists ) indulge in fierce denunciations , instead Of appealing to their reason and common sense by p lain statements and fair arguments j" and presents a vigorous enumeration of other things which they are said to have done instead of what they ought to have done . The error of this enumeration consists in the one word " instead . " Mr . Phillips entirely misunderstands us . We did not say that the Abolitionists denounced " instead" of reasoning : we said they denounced as well as reasoned , and that their denunciations inflamed the passions , so that their reasonings were often lost upon the persons to whom they were addressed .

      There are passages of Mr . Phiilips ' s speech at which wo feel disappointed , at being so misunderstood . Writing in favour of the Abolition of Shivery in America , is something like writing in favour of Temperance in England . Unless you agree entirely with the Temperance reformer you had better not write at nil , and unless you entirely agree with the Abolitionist ho is yery apt to regard you in tho light of an enemy . " Thero are some , " says Mr . Phillips , " who come upon our platforms , and give us the aid of names and reputations less burdened than ours with popular odium . * *

      These men are ever p arading their wish to draw a lino between themselves and us , becauso they must be permitted to wait—to trust more to reason than to feeling ' —to indulge a generous charity . * * I reject with scorn , " exclaims our impetuous and indignant orator , " these imp lications , that our judgments are uncharitable . These- lectures , to which you , sir , ( addressing tho chairman , ) and all of us , have -so ofton listened , would bo impertinent if they were not rather ridiculous , for the gross ignorance- they betray of the community , of tho cause , and of the whole course of its friends . "

      If this language in addressed to tho writer of tho- ^ o articles it is founded on a misapprehension , both of tho spirit and texture of his argument . This language , however , shall not repel our sympathy , or suppress our opinions . Tho cau ^ o of tho oppressed is the common cause of tho human family . It is not tho monopoly of any Society . Tho humblest man has a right to make what contribution ho can to tho furtherance of liberty , and to give that opinion which ho thinks most likely to efleet that object , and to stand up , equally against tho fallacies of tho Slaveholders , and tho denunciations of tho Abolitionists . It happens that tho author of tho criticisms Mr . * Published by Tweedio , Strand , prico 3 d . + Vido Leader , No . 146 , pago 80 .

      Phillips replies to , has not been the most successful person , in selecting causes to champion utterly free from " popular odium , " and great is the mistake in supposing that he would draw any line between himself and the right party ,., even though they took the wrong method .. He would ever prefer the side of-freedom , with'all its faults ten times magnified , to standing on the side of oppression , with all the proprieties in the world in its favour . Tho maddest , wildest , rudest , grossest right is nobler , far , than the courtliest , gracefulest wrong . Not that the Abolitionists of America are mad , wild , rude , or gross . This is not meant to

      be implied . The question raised is , why should right be ever wrongly urged , and wrong rightly advocated ? We deny that our observations were quite gratuitous " impertinences , " or generated of " gross ignorance . " Mr . Phillips expressly owns ? , ( p . 6 : ) " Neither would I be understood as denying that we used denunciation and ridicule , and every other weapon that the human mind knows . " This is precisely what we said . It was the inutility of this indiscriminate warfare upon which we insisted , and we do not see in . what way our argnments are answered , by the admission of the fact . We laid an information , to which Mr . Phillips pleads guilty , and considers it a reply . Mr . Phillips , indeed , justifies the course which he pursues . He says , eloquently , " the clients of the Abolitionists are three

      millions of slaves , standing , dumb suppliants , on the threshold of the Christian world , with no voices but those of the Abolitionists to demand justice for them . " It is on this very account that we ventured to say , that the " only" friends of the slave should take care that what they say shall be calculated to diminish the wrong . By " every weapon the human mind knows" Mr . Phillips , who is not less honourable than eloquent , means it to be understood , every weapon " an honest man may employ . " But we deny that every " honest" weapon is a useful one . Ridicule and denunciation , for instance , like the bows and arrows of savages , or the firearms of the last century , are worn out , or very much superseded . But these points we will not re-argue . We have stated our case . The public of England and America , so far as these papers may reach them , must judge

      between us . Hero is one of Mr . Phiilips ' s most animated passages :- — "We warn the living that we have terrible memories , and that their sins are never to be forgotten . We will gibbet the name of every apostate so black and high , that his children ' s children shall blush to bear it . . . . . We will teach caution to the living by dealing out relentless justice to the dead . . . . . We will insist on explaining the chance expressions ( whispered in a corner for liberty ) by the tenour of a long and base life . "—Vide p . 11 . This passage would , we fear , be immensely applauded in the Melodeon , but its effect on a brave man would be

      different from what the orator expects . You feel so much resentment at this language , that you would rather , as you read it , be a Slaveholder than an Abolitionist . Common manliness disposes you to stand out against such a . menace , and in spite of yourself , your sympathies go over to tho side of thoso who arc thus attempted to be dragooned into the cause of humanity . You hate tyranny wherever it rears its vindictive head . We still stand on Mr . Phiilips ' s side , for intrinsic reasons of humanity and liberty ; but Slaveholders must either be very cowardly or very noblo , and possessed of wonderful self-government , not to stand up with prido in their own defence after listening to such a passage .

      Ono instance further , and these strictures shall cease . Mr . Phillips says , — " We must plead guilty , if there bo guilt in not knowing how to separate tho sin from tho . sinner . " Now , tho ability to do this wo take to Ko at the root ol' all sound reformation . To say this separation is impossible , proceeds on tho assumption that men aro infallible—it proceeds on the assump tion that all who err know i !; , that conscientious error is impossible , while it must bo obvious on reflection and by a slight appeal to history and common experience , that good men continually abet orror , not knowing it to bo error . In all such cases , the urn in wido apart from tho sinner . If sin be not separable- from tho sinner , argument is Utterly . unnecessary in advocacy , and

      denunciation is tho first , tho second , iirid thor third , and the solo weapon of rhetoric . It would bo easy to defend our own views nt far greater length , and with augmented instances , but wo would rather bo supposed in tho wrong than appear to wish to put tho Abolitionists in tho wrong . Wo will aid thorn if wo can , and offor suggestions of our own right , whether they will or not . Deprive them of an atom of just sympathy wo never will , and wo beg them to believe ; , whether they regard or denounce us in return , that wo honour thorn for their courage , their devotion , and their causo . Ion .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 6, 1853, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06081853/page/17/