The Abolitionist Who Turned His Eyes Toward Capital
Reflecting on the life of Wendell Phillips, the radical orator who identified capitalism as the next great system of servitude after chattel slavery.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Much attention was paid to the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Wendell Phillips, Nov. 29 last. In April, 1871, the American Anti-slavery society held its last meeting, and while others retired, Phillips saw new battles to be fought. He closed his final speech with the words: 'We will not say farewell, but all hail. Welcome, new duties! We sheathe no sword. We only turn the front of the army upon a new foe.' The new foe was capitalism. In the dependence of the masses upon vast aggregations of capital, he saw a type of servitude only less terrible than the chattel slavery of the South. That slavery destroyed, the fight for better wages, shorter hours, and the curbing of the power of money followed, in Phillips' mind, as the night the day.
“We will not say 'Farewell,' but 'All hail.' Welcome, new duties! We sheathe no sword. We only turn the front of the army upon a new foe.”
Phillips' transition from abolition to anti-capitalist organizing highlights a historical continuity in American progressive movements. His critique of 'an aristocracy of capital' remains a potent theme in modern discourse about wealth inequality in Snohomish County.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.