ISAIAH C. WEARS.
To be a good debater is one of the noblest gifts of God to a public speaker. There are thousands of men in and out of the pulpit, who can deliver sermons and addresses, original or selected, and do it in the most approved style of oratory, and yet cannot debate a simple question with a child. This may seem extravagant to those who have not been behind the curtain with public men. A proficient and reliable debater must have brains, a well-stored mind, with ability to draw upon the resources at will; then the gift of gab, a temper entirely under his control, and must possess a common degree of politeness. Give such a man a fair cause, and you have a first-class debater. We listened to the ablest men in and out of the British Parliament twenty years ago, when Brougham, Derby, Thompson, Disraeli, Cobden, and a host of English orators, were in their prime, and we sat with delight in the gallery of the French Assembly when the opposition was led by Lamartine. We spent twenty-five years with the abolitionists of our own country, and in whose meetings more eloquence was heard than with any other body of men and women that ever appeared upon the world’s platform. And after all, we have come to the conclusion that the most logical, ready, reliable, and eloquent debater we have ever heard is a black man, and that black man, the gentleman whose name heads this sketch.
Isaiah C. Wears is a resident of Philadelphia, but a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and is about fifty years of age. For more than a quarter of a century he has been a leading man in his city, and especially in the organization and support of literary societies. The “Platonian Institute,” “Garrisonian Institute,” “The Philadelphia Library Company,” and some smaller associations, owe their existence to the energy, untiring zeal, and good judgment of Mr. Wears. Fidelity to the freedom and elevation of his own race kept him always on the alert, watching for the enemy. The Colonization Society found in him a bitter and relentless foe; and the negro, an able and eloquent advocate.
He has long stood at the head of “The Banneker Institute,” one of the finest and most useful associations in our country, and where we have listened to as good speeches as ever were made in the halls of Congress. Mr. Wears is not confined in his labors to the literary and the political, but is one of the foremost men in the church, and, had he felt himself called upon to preach, he would now be an ornament to the pulpit.
In person, he is small, of neat figure, pure in his African origin, intelligent countenance, and an eye that looks right through you. Mr. Wears has a good education, is gentlemanly in appearance, well read, with a character unimpeachable, and is a citizen honored and respected by all.