Wendell Phillips: “The Puritan Principle and John Brown”

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Wendell Phillips:“The Puritan Principle and John Brown”
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Abstract

Wendell Phillips was a white abolitionist with two degrees from Harvard. His calling was that of the political agitator, and his gifts were those of a compelling public speaker and intellectual. Since his speeches circulated widely in print, his readers were even more numerous and farflung than those who heard him in person. “The Puritan Principle and John Brown” was Phillips’s eulogy for the abolitionist hanged for his raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start a movement to liberate enslaved African Americans. Phillips saw the action as heralding a new age of insurrection against slavery.

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