Throughout the Civil War era, no other white American spoke more powerfully against slavery and for the ideals of racial democracy than did Wendell Phillips. Nationally famous as abolition s golden trumpet, Phillips became the North s most widely hailed public lecturer, even though he espoused ideas most regarded as deeply threatening the abolition of slavery, equality among races and classes, and women's rights. James Brewer Stewart s study resolves this seeming paradox by showing how Phillips came to possess such extraordinary rhetorical gifts, how he used them to shape the politics of...