Rochester, April 6th. 1852.

Wendell Phillips EsqrPhillips, Wendell

Boston-born and Harvard-educated Wendell Phillips (1811-84) ranked second only to Garrison in influence in the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Bored with the legal profession and influenced by his antislavery fiancee, Ann Terry Greene, Phillips dedicated himself to abolitionism beginning in 1837. A highly gifted orator, Phillips was in demand as a lecturer even in nonabolitionist circles. Besides abolition, Phillips championed woman suffrage, prohibition, penal reform, Indian rights, and legislative protection for workers. When Garrison retired from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1865, Phillips assumed the post and led abolitionists until passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero (Baton Rouge, La., 1986); Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical (Boston, 1961); DAB, 14:546-47. :

Dear Sir:

An engagement of longstanding in Cincinnati, compels me to forgo the pleasure of attending the Sims Anniversary in Boston. I can easily see that the occasion may be made highly interesting and Serviceable to the cause of Liberty. And from what I know of the men whose Services are ever at the command of the cause in Boston—I am sure that my presense will be scarecely needed, to add either to the interest, or the usefulness of the occasion.

Very Respectfully Yours,

Frederick Douglass.