John F. Hume, The abolitionists together with personal memories of the struggle for human rights

[106] until after the war which had freed their illegitimate relatives. Then all the facts came to their knowledge. What should they do about it? was the question that immediately confronted them. Should they-“Carolina's high-souled daughters,” as Whittier describes them, and not without some part in the pride of the family to which they belonged --acknowledge such a disreputable relationship? Not a day nor an hour did they hesitate. They sent for their unfortunate kins-people, accepted them as blood connections, and took upon themselves the duty of promoting their interests as far as it was in their power to do so.

Although a quiet and retiring person, and, moreover, so much of an invalid that the greater part of her time was necessarily passed in a bed of sickness, a New England woman had much to do with publishing the doctrines of Abolitionism, through the lips of the most eloquent man in the country. She was the wife of Wendell Phillips, the noted Anti-Slavery lecturer.

“My wife made me an Abolitionist,” said Phillips. How the work was done is not without its romantic interest.

It was several years before he made his meteoric appearance before the public as a platform talker, and while yet a law student, that Phillips met the lady in question. The interview, as described by one of the parties, certainly had its comical aspect. “I talked Abolitionism to him all the time we were together,” said Mrs. Phillips, as she afterwards related the affair. Phillips listened, and that he was not surfeited nor disgusted appears from the fact