Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/58

52 of the rubbish that its going out would leave. These three parts came together and made up the enemy that met us before the ink was dry that gave force to the Emancipation Proclamation. So we had, instead of actual chattel slavery, a state of things that called loudly on the veteran Abolitionists to retain their guns, and for new recruits to come in quick, in order to keep the army in a proper condition to meet the foe that had been defeated, but not positively conquered.

Early amongst those who responded to the call of Wendell Phillips and his faithful band was the young, vigorous, and. dashing John Boyle O'Reilly. He was quick to grapple with the many-headed monster that had been formed out of the debris that had been left to show that slavery once had a standing in this land.

With his pen, John Boyle O'Reilly sent through the columns of a newspaper that he edited in this city, words in our behalf that were Christian, and anathemas that were just. Not only that, but he went on to the platform, and in bold and defiant language he denounced the murderers of our people and advised us to strike the tyrants back. It was at a time when the cloud was most heavy and more threatening than at any other period since reconstruction. At that time our Wendell Phillips was stricken by the hand of death, and then it was that some doubted that they would ever be able to see a clear sky. But in the