Wendell Phillips, the underappreciated author of the fine phrase that graces our federal courthouse, "The first duty of society is justice," was not necessarily a proper Bostonian - the other Boston brahmins thought him a rabble-rouser, which he was -- but he was among the most elegant and entertaining orators of his day. He would insert dry zingers among his serious points in support of the abolitionist movement and his lampoons of William H. Seward. He let off one of his best five minutes after he spoke his famous line, when he criticized Massachusetts for having been "hide-bound in the aristocracy of classes for years after" the Revolution, describing his home state's bygone beliefs in these words:
The five points of Massachusetts decency were, to trace your lineage to the Mayflower, graduate at Harvard College, be a good lawyer or a member of an orthodox church, -- either would answer, -- pay your debts, and frighten your child to sleep by saying "Thomas Jefferson."