Wendell Phillips was another leading abolitionist of the time, and his letter serves as a kind of "book review." Phillips begins by recognizing that history is told by people who hold power. Marginalized people are misrepresented or misunderstood because they have no voice. Phillips' argument is, in fact, surprisingly similar to that made by political activists in the U.S. today, who demand that marginalized people — people of color, women, racial minorities, gays and lesbians — be represented.
Phillips refers to the anti-slavery movement in Britain which ended slavery in British colonies in the Caribbean (West Indies). The "experiment" apparently had no horrendous or negative effect on British society or on its economy. Furthermore, Phillips urges abolitionists to look beyond simple moral arguments. For example, he cites abolitionists whose only argument is that it is not right for Southerners to justify slavery on economic grounds. (Some pro-slavery advocates warned that eliminating slavery in the Caribbean would lead to an increase in the price of sugar.) There are many other arguments one can make against slavery, Phillips says, presenting slavery as an issue that is absolutely antithetical to the very foundations of a free America. Plymouth Rock once offered refuge to the oppressed; it should do so again.
Phillips' comments about fugitive slaves being hunted refers to the existence of slave hunters, whose sole livelihood was capturing fugitives in the North for a bounty. Slave hunters were later legitimized under the Fugitive Slave Act. As part of the Great Compromise of 1850, Congress passed a bill forbidding new slave states but allowing fugitive slaves to be captured and returned to their owners. The measure preserved the Union for a few more years.
Phillips understands that there is racism in the North, that the black person there enjoys only partial rights ("a twilight of rights"), but this situation, he feels, is better than the "noon of night" (midnight), under which slaves labor in the South.
