A provocative antislavery orator, Wendell Phillips described himself as fanatical in the cause of liberty. The aristocratic Phillips made himself a social pariah by his early support for William Lloyd Garrison, but he remained one of The Liberator's most reliable financial backers. Of Garrison, Phillips said: "I have never uttered an anti-slavery word which I do not owe to his inspiration. I have never done an anti-slavery act of which the primary merit was not his."