Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 29: Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 1885

IN all that pertains to the political history of Bureau County, and especially the antislavery movement that commenced here more than a generation ago, in first a protest and then in open and active defiance of the fugitive slave law, the one pre-eminent name is that of Owen Lovejoy. Individuals and nations are wonderfully the creatures of circumstances. This fact becomes the more apparent and curious the more intimately our pursuits or our reading and study lead us to minutely examine the history of either governments or individuals. This, as much as anything else, is the source of much of our interest in all historical subjects. This will explain our here introducing the following paragraphs from the current history of Illinois:

The year 1837 is memorable for the death of Illinois' first martyr to liberty, Elijah P. Lovejoy. He was born at Albion, Kennebec Co., Me., November 9, 1802. At the age of twenty-one he entered Waterville College, and after graduating with the first honors of his class, removed to St. Louis and commenced teaching. A year or two afterward lie exchanged the occupation of a teacher for that of the journalist, became the editor of the St. Louis Times, and advocated the election of Henry Clay as President of the United States. Not long after he had entered this new field of labor he united with the Presbyterian Church, and determined to abandon it also for the clerical profession. Accordingly, at the age of thirty he repaired to the Theological School at Princeton, N. J., and entered with great ardor upon his studies, and in 1833 was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. The following summer was spent in preaching in Newport, R. I., and at Spring Church, N. Y., after which he returned to St. Louis. Here he again assumed the editorial chair, and issued the first number of the St. Louis Observer, a religious newspaper, November 22, 1833. Soon after he incurred the illwill of the Catholic Church by characterizing their proceedings in laying the corner-stone of a cathedral on the Sabbath as a desecration of the day, and charging the use of the United States artillery and cavalry, which were brought into requisition to give prestige to the occasion, was a prostitution of the purpose for which they were intended. From the clerical rancor excited by this outspoken expression of opinion, he thought, proceeded the persecutions which he subsequently encountered, though masked in the guise of [anti]-Abolitionism. The question of slavery even at that early day was one of absorbing interest, and it was impossible for one of Mr. Lovejoy's vigorous intellect and fearless manner of speaking not to become involved in its discussion and not to incur the hatred of its advocates. The subject having arrested his attention he wrote an editorial on it, and left the city to attend a

Presbyterian Synod. During his absence it appeared in the columns of the Observer, and such was the commotion it excited that the owners of the -press were compelled to publish a card to allay the excitement and prevent a mob from destroying their property. On his return a paper was presented to him by a number of leading citizens and the minister who received him into the church, in which they expressed the opinion that slavery is sanctioned by the Bible, and asked him to desist from its further discussion. Though the authors of the request represented the intelligence and morality of St. Louis, if honest, how little they understood the personal rights of mankind; and how little they supposed this question was destined in less than half a century to shake the continent with civil commotion. This paper was inserted in the Observer and also a reply from Mr. Lovejoy, in which he claimed the right to publish his honest convictions. In answer to the Biblical view given of slavery, he reminds his censors of the golden rule, " Make not slaves of others if you do not wish to be made slaves yourselves." His statement, although couched in the most inoffensive language, again excited the ire of the citizens, and the proprietors of the press took possession of it to prevent a recurrence of the disturbance. A friend, however, interfered, and agreed to restore the press to him, provided he would remove it to Alton, where he might use it safely. The offer was accepted, but after he had gone thither to make arrangements for publishing it he was invited to return to St. Louis. On going back he resumed his editorial labors and continued there until the summer of 1835, when he again became involved in difficulties.

killed one and badly wounded the other. In consequence of the murderous assault, a large crowd surrounded the jail in which he was imprisoned, and taking him thence they bound him to a stake and burned him to death. The community being largely in sympathy with the perpetrators of this unlawful and fiendish act, it was a long time before they were brought to trial. When at length the matter was presented to the grand jury, the judge, by the most gross perversion of facts, informed them that the Observer had caused the negro to murder the policeman, and that there was no law for punishing them who burnt him at the stake. A succeeding number of this sheet repelled the flagrant charge made by the judge, alluded to the fact that he was a Catholic, and intimated that his views respecting the enforcement of the law could only result from Jesuitical teachings. The editor, aware that the statement would be followed by another outburst of indignation and an attempt to destroy the press, immediately caused it to be shipped to Alton, where it arrived July 21, 1836. The day being Sunday, Mr. Lovejoy proposed to let it remain on the wharf until Monday; but the ensuing night it was secretly visited by a number of persons, who broke it into pieces and threw it into the river. When this dastardly act became known the next day, the people became excited and the ensuing evening a large meeting assembled in the Presbyterian Church, to listen to addresses by Mr. Lovejoy and other speakers. The former stated that he had come to Alton to establish a religious newspaper, that he was pleased with the town, and as most of his subscribers resided in Illinois, it would be best for him to make it his future home; that he regretted that his presence had caused so much excitement, and the people must have a wrong appreciation of his object; that he was not an

Abolitionist, and had been frequently denounced by Garrison and others as being proslavery because he was not in favor of their measures; that he was opposed to slavery, ever had been, and hoped he always would be. This statement corresponds with his previous declaration and position in regard to slavery. He always manifested a strong sympathy for the oppressed, and in common with North and South, regarded colonization as the best means of freeing the country from the curse of slavery. With the progress of events, this scheme, though it had enlisted the regard of statesmen and philanthropists, was abandoned for more practical views. Mr. Lovejoy, who never permitted himself to fall behind the march of ideas, also took a more advanced position. In the same meeting he also said that "he was now removed from slavery, and could publish a newspaper without discussing it, and that it looked like cowardice to flee from the place where the evil existed and come to a place where it did not exist to expose it." With these declarations, extorted to a great extent by the tyrannical censorship of the slave power, he no doubt after his arrival in Alton intended to comply. Indeed he might j ustly have concluded that it was useless to waste his time and energy in endeavoring to benefit a community which was endeavoring to exercise over him a bondage worse than that which fettered the body of the slave. Yet, as the contest between freedom and slavery grew warmer, and earnest champions were needed to contend for the right, Mr. Lovejoy concluded that duty required him to again enter the arena of discussion.

As the result of the meeting funds were raised, another press was sent for, and the first number of the Alton Observer was issued September 8, 1836. Its editor, gifted with more than ordinary ability, soon extended its circulation, its discussions at first being mostly confined to subjects of a moral and literary character. By and by the question of slavery was also broached. Mr. Lovejoy no doubt smarting under the unjust surveillance to which he was subjected at the starting of his paper, seemed now determined to exercise his constitutional rights to free speech, being willing that the laws of his country, not the dictation of ruffians, should decide as to whether he abused this privilege.

In the issue of June 29, 1837, at the in- - stance of the Anti-Slavery Society, he favored the circulation of a petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the succeeding number he speaks of the importance of organizing an anti-slavery society for the State of Illinois. In the same paper he also indulged in the following reflections, suggested by the Fourth of July: " This day reproaches us for our sloth and inactivity. It is the day of our Nation's birth. Even as we write, crowds are hurrying past our window in eager anticipation to the appointed bower, to listen to the declaration that, ' All men are created equal ;' to hear the eloquent orator denounce, in strains of manly indignation, the attempt of England to lay a yoke on the shoulders of our fathers which neither they nor their children could bear. Alas, what a bitter mockery is this; we assemble to thank God for our own freedom, and to eat with joy and gladness of heart, while our feet are on the necks of nearly 3,000,000 of our fellow-men. Not all our shouts of self-congratulation can drown their groans; even the very flag which waves over our head is formed of material cultivated by slaves, on a soil moistened by their blood, drawn from them by the whip of a republican task-master." As soon as this was read, the pro-slavery men assembled in the market house and passed a number of resolutions, in which, with strange incongruity, they claim the right of free speech for themselves, while they plot to deprive another of the same privilege. A committee was appointed to inform Mr. Lovejoy that he must cease agitating the question of slavery, and they accordingly dropped a letter in the postoffice, containing a demand to that effect. The editor replied to the communication by denying their right to dictate to him what it was proper to discuss, and at the same time tendered them the use of his paper to refute his opinions if they were wrong. They, however, chose a more summary manner for ending the controversy. On the night of the 25th of August a mob made an assault on the office of the Observer, with stones and brickbats, and after driving out the employees, entered and completely demolished the press. Mr. Lovejoy himself was afterward surrounded in the street by a number of ruffians, it was believed for the purpose of offering him violence. These outrages were boldly committed, without any attempt being made by the city officials to bring the rioters to justice. The anti-slavery party of the town, of course, were justly incensed at this wanton outrage and willful disregard of individual rights, but being largely in the minority, all they could do was to quietly submit and send for a new press. This, however, the proscribed editor was never to see. Leaving Alton shortly after to attend a presbytery, the press arrived September 21, and in his absence it was demolished, and, like its predecessor, thrown into the Mississippi. These unlawful proceedings had now been perpetrated so often in Si Louis and Alton with impunity, that not only these localities but other places were rapidly becoming demoralized Not long after the destruction of the third press, Mr. Lovejoy visited his mother in St. Charles, Mo. Here he was violently assailed by a crowd of ruffians, with the avowed object of taking his life, and it was only by the interposition of his heroic and devoted wife, that he escaped their murderous intent.

In the meantime the friends of Mr. Lovejoy sent for the fourth press, and it was in connection with this, the tragedy occurred which cost him his life. In anticipation of its arrival a series of meetings was held in which both the friends of freedom and slavery were represented. The object of the latter was to effect a compromise, but it was one in which liberty was to make concessions to oppression; in which the proprietors of the Observer were to forego the legitimate use of their property to appease an ignorant mob, and in which right and modern progress were required to submit to injustice and the exploded ideas of the past. Mr. Hogan, the Methodist minister, endeavored to prove from the Bible the inexpediency of the course pursued by Mr. Lovejoy and his friends, in which he remarked "The great Apostle had said all things are lawful for him, but all things are not expedient; if Paul yielded to the law of expediency, would it be wrong for Mr. Lovejoy to follow his example ? The spirit of God did not pursue Paul to his destruction for thus acting, but on the contrary commended his course; Paul had never taken up arms to propagate the religion of his Master, nor to defend himself from the attacks of his enemies; the people of Damascus were opposed to Paul, but he did not argue with the populace the question of his legal rights; did he say, ' I am a Minister of Christ and must not leave the work of my Master, and flee before the face of a mob?'"

This was strange advice to come from the abettor of a faction, first to inaugurate violence and at that very time conspiring against the life of one who was legally void of offense.

The reverend gentleman seemed to think the aggrieved should* exercise forbearance, while the mob might insult and 'destroy with impunity. Mr. Beecher, President of Illinois College, was present and delivered addresses, in which he took a position almost as objectionable as that of Mr. Hogan. He believed that slavery was morally wrong, and should not be tolerated for a moment. He contended that if the Constitution sanctioned iniquity, it was also wrong, and could not be binding upon the people; that for his part he did not acknowledge obedience to the Constitution, and as long as it tolerated slavery, he could not. But when he came to urge the rights of his friends to free speech and the peaceable use of their property, he invoked all the guarantees of the Constitution and Government to protect them in the enjoyment* of these privileges. He would now have others submit, to the law, while he was unwilling to do so himself. Mr. Lovejoy, who was more consistent than either of these gentlemen, contended only for his undoubted rights, and expressed in a conciliatory manner his unalterable determination to maintain them. "Mr. Chairman," said he, "what have I to compromise? If freely to forgive those who have so greatly injured me; if to pray for their temporal and eternal happiness; if still to wish for the prosperity of your city and State, notwithstanding the indignities I have suffered in them; if this be the compromise intended, then do I willingly make it. I do not admit that it is the business of any body of men to say whether I shall or shall not publish a paper in this city. That right was given me by my Creator, and is solemnly guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and this State. But if by compromise is meant that I shall cease from that which duty requires of me, I cannot make it, and the reason is that I fear God more than man.

It is also a very different question, whether I shall voluntarily, or at the request of my friends, yield up my position, or whether I shall forsake it at the demand of a mob. The former I am ready at all times to do when the circumstances require it, as J will never put my personal wishes in competition with the cause of that Master whose minister I am. But the latter, be assured, I will never do. You have, as the lawyers say, made a false issue. There are no two parties between whom there can be a compromise. I plant myself down on my unquestionable rights, and the question to be decided is, whether I shall be protected in these rights? That is the question. You may hang me as the mob hung the individual at Vicksburg. You may burn me at the stake as they did old Mclntosh in St. Louis, or you may tar and feather me, or throw me into the Mississippi as you have threatened to do, but you cannot disgrace me. I, and I alone, can disgrace myself, and the deepest of all disgrace would be at a time like this to deny my Maker by forsaking His cause. He died for me, and I were most unworthy to bear His name should I refuse, if need be, to die for Him."

The boat having the obnoxious press on board arrived early in the morning, November 7, 1837, and the latter was immediately removed to the stone warehouse of Godfrey, Gilman & Co. The proprietors and their friends now assembled with arms to defend it. No violence was offered till the ensuing night, when a mob of about thirty persons came from the drinking saloon and demanded the press. This insolent and unjust demand was of course refused, when the assailants, with stones, brickbats and guns, committed an attack on the building. Those within, among whom was Mr. Love joy, returned the fire, by which one of the mob was killed and several others wounded. This warm reception caused them to retire, some to bear away the dying man, others to summon reinforcements, but the most of them visited the adjacent grog-shops for the purpose of reviving their courage. Soon after, the bells of the city were rung, horns were blown, and an excited multitude came running to the warehouse, some urging on the drunken and imbruted mob, and others persuading them to desist. Ladders were placed against the side of the building without windows, where there was no danger from within, and several persons ascended to fire the roof. Mr. Lovejoy and some others, on learning their danger, rushed out, and firing on the incendiaries drove them away. After returning to the inside, on reloading their pieces, Mr. Lovejoy, with two or three companions, not seeing any foe on the south side, again stepped out to look after the roof. Concealed assassins were watching, and simultaneously firing, five bullets entered his body, when he exclaimed: "My God! I am shot," and expired.

With the fall of the master spirit, the defenders of the press surrendered it to the mob, who (?) broke it into fragments, and threw them into the river. The following day a grave was dug on a high bluff in the southern part of the city, and the body, without ceremony, was thrown into it and covered up. Some years afterward the same elevation was chosen as the site of a cemetery, and in laying out the grounds the main avenue chanced to pass over the grave of Lovejoy. To obviate the difficulty, his ashes were interred in a new locality, and within a few years past a simple monument was erected over the spot bearing the inscription: "Hicjacet Lovejoy; jam par cere sepulto."* tion, there are more unknown, unhonored martyrs, sleeping in unmarked graves, than there are honored and well known names in history. The shores of time have been strewn with their mangled remains. Lovejoy died in defense of a free press and free speech. The effects flowing out from this circumstance are curious and interesting subjects for philosophical study, and, when we have all passed away, they will (that is, cause and effect) be gone over with passionless judgments, and lessons drawn therefrom that will stand as beacon lights to all mankind.

But here we give the story of Elijah P. Lovejoy's death, because it is intimately connected with the past political history of Bureau County. It brings us understandingly to the wonderful story of Owen Lovejoy's life and times in the county, and is the key to the whole. When we have secured the key to a man's mission in life, and Owen Lovejoy was one of the few men in history who had a mission, it is easy enough to tell the remainder of the story. The man with a mission, on which he stakes his existence, his all, his everything here and hereafter, is a ! man of destiny, a hero whose story will attract men of every age and clime. There is no question but that if our country has produced such historic characters, Owen Lovejoy stands among them pre-eminently conspicuous.

Owen Lovejoy was born January 6, 1811, i in Kennebec County, Me. His father was a clergyman, who resided on a farm where Owen was born, and here, as a child and boy, he labored till he was eighteen years old, enjoying limited school advantages. He prepared himself to teach school, and thus eventually worked his way through Bowdoin College. In 1836 he immigrated to Alton, 111. Here he spent a year studying theology. Upon the death of his brother, he removed

For seventeen years he was the minister of the Princeton Congregational Church, and he preached liberty all that time. He befriended the fugitive slaves at all times, and his house and purse were ever open to them. The slave-owners of the South soon knew him as one of the most active managers of the "Underground Eailroad" - the slaves' highway through Illinois to Canada. Princeton was a " division headquarters " on this railroad. At one time he was indicted by the grand jury of Bureau County for " feeding ! and clothing a negro woman." He was the j " Liberal Party " candidate for Congress as early as 1844 in this then very large district. He canvassed the district proclaiming his opposition to the fugitive slave law. This was his well chosen point of attack upon slavery, and is it not the evidence of the " method in his madness ?" In 1847 he was a candidate for the Constitutional Convention, and was defeated by Simon Kinney by twenty votea This vote was some evidence of the work he had done in the nine years of his residence here. In 1854 he was elected to the Illinois Legislature. In 1856, after a long and hard fought contest, he was nominated by a Republican Convention at Bloomington for Congress. So intense was the opposition to him that there was a "bolt" and the bolters nominated Judge Dickey - now of the State Supreme Court. His election at first was considered doubtful, but he canvassed the district thoroughly and was elected by a large majority. He was elected to Congress four times in succession. He remained in Congress from his first election until the day of his death, March 25, 1864, in Brooklyn, N. Y.

indicted by the grand jury of Bureau County for keeping the said " Agnes " in his dwelling-house, feeding, clothing anJ comforting her the said "Agnes," he the said Owen Lovejoy, then and there the said "Agnes," so being a slave, and owing service as aforesaid, unlawfully and wilfully did harbor and secrete," etc.

The other count was to the same tenor, except it was for another slave, "Nancy." The indictment is signed by \V. H. Purple, State's Attorney pro tern. At the October term, ]843, a motion to quash the indictment was filed for the cause that, first the name of the owner of the alleged slave was not given, nor the State, Territory or district where the alleged master resided; second, neither count sets out any offense within the true intent of the statute; third, that the 149th section of the criminal code is void, Congress having legislated on the same subject, and it having exclusive power over the same. The demurrer was signed by "Owen Lovejoy in person," and " J. H. Collins, of Counsel." The motion was overruled; the case called for trial, a jury impaneled; and on the 7th day of October a verdict of not guilty returned.

"I have spoken of Mr. Butterfield; the firm name of Butterfield & Collins, partners, was in those early days always associated. Mr. Collins was a good lawyer, a man of perseverance, pluck and resolution, and as combative as an English bull dog. He was an early and most violent and extreme Abolitionist; a cotemporary with Dr. Charles V. Dyer, the Lovejoys, Ichabod Codding, Eastman, Freer, Farnsworth and other Abolitionists in northern Illinois. I wish I could reproduce a full report of the case of the

People vs. Owen Lovejoy." He then refers to the case we have given above, and states the facts nearly as there given, except that he says it was in ' ' May, 1842," when it should be as given above, "May, 1843." He then says : " The trial lasted nearly a week, and Lovejoy and Collins fought the case with a vigor and boldness almost without a parellel. The prosecution was urged by the enemies of Lovejoy with an energy and vindictiveness with which Purple and Fridley could have had little sympathy. When the case was called for trial a strong pro-slavery man, one of those by whom the indictment had been procured, said to the State's Attorney:

' ' Fridley was right - Lovejoy was sent to Congress; where, as you all know, he was soon heard from by the whole country. The prosecution was ably conducted, and Collins and Lovejoy not only availed themselves of every technical ground of defense, but denounced vehemently the laws under which the indictment was drawn as unconstitutional and void; justifying every act charged as criminal. A full report of the trial would have considerable historic interest. The counsel engaged were equal to the important legal and constitutional questions discussed. Judge Purple for logical ability and wide culturw, for a clear, concise style, condensing the strong points of a case into the fewest words had rarely an equal. Fridley for quaint humor, for drollery and apt illustration, expressed in familiar, plain, colloquial, sometimes vulgar language, but with a clear, strong, common sense, was a very effective prosecutor. Collins was indefatig- able, dogmatic, never giving up, and if the court decided one point against him, he was ready -with another, and if that was overruled, still others.

" Love joy suggested to me a Koundhead of the days of Cromwell. He was thoroughly in earnest, almost, if not quite, fanatical in his politics. His courage was unflinching, and he would have died for his principles. He had a blunt, masculine eloquence, rarely equaled, and on the slavery question, as a stump speaker, it would be difficult to name his superior. Collins and Lovejoy, after a week's conflict, won their cause. Lovejoy himself made a masterly argument, and Mr. Collins' closing speech extended through two days. They extorted a verdict from a hostile jury. It is very doubtful, however, if they could have succeeded. with all their efforts, but for the accidental disclosure of the alleged owner, on his cross-examination, of a fact unknown^ to the defense. He said he was taking the slave girl Nance from Kentucky to Missouri, through Illinois.* He was ignorant that by voluntarily bringing his supposed chattel from a slave to a free State she became free. Messrs. Collins and Lovejoy saw the importance of this fact - indeed, the turningpoint in the case. Lovejoy quoted with great effect the lines from Cowper, now so familiar:

' Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free - They touch our country and their shackles fall.'

*A slight error here of Mr. Arnold's statement is that this was the testimony of the owner of the slave, that was the turning point in the case. The facts are, the name of the owner was not known ; he was not present at the trial. The prosecution introduced a witness named Delano, and heswore toaconfession ' girl to Missouri, and the Court ruled if part of te conesson taken it must all stand, and the point therefore arose in the in this way, and not upon the owner's evidence or confesher soil consecrated to freedom by the ordinance of 1787 and her own Constitution?'

" Mr. Collins, in summing up, read the great and eloquent opinion of Lord Mansfield in the Sommersett case, an opinion which Cowper so beautifully paraphrased in his poem.

" Judge Caton's charge, which will be found in the Western Citizen of October 26, 1843, was very fair. He laid down the law distinctly, that ' if a man voluntarily brings his slave into a free State, the slave becomes free.'

"In February, 1859, at the Capitol in Washington, speaking of the acts which led to this trial, there is one of the boldest and most effective bursts of eloquence from Lovejoy to be found in all the literature of anti-slavery discussion. He had been taunted and reproached on the floor of Congress, and stigmatized as one who, in aiding slaves to escape, had violated the laws and Constitution of his country. He had been denounced as a ' nigger stealer,' threatened by the slaveholders, and they attempted to intimidate and silence him. They little knew the man, and his reply silenced them, and extorted the admiration of friend and foe. He closed one of the most radical and impassioned anti-slavery speeches ever made in Congress by unflinchingly declaring: ' I do assist fugitive slaves. Proclaim it, then, upon the house-tops; write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest; make it blaze from the sun at high- noon, and shine forth in the milder radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God; let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow along all the deep gorges of hell where slave-catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village; and he aids every fugi- tive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of Slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I BID YOU DEFIANCE IN THE NAME OF GOD ! '

"I heard Lovejoy declare that, after the death of his brother, he went to the graveyard at Alton, and kneeling upon the sod which covered the grave of that brother, he there, before God, swore eternal war and vengeance upon slavery. He kept' his vow.

" He was a man of powerful physique, intense feeling and great magnetism as a speaker, and he now went forth like Peter the Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of lightning, preaching his crusade against slavery .

' ' In the log schoolhouses, in the meetinghouses and places of worship, and in the open air, he preached and lectured against slavery with a vehemence and passionate energy which carried the people with him. The martyrdom of his brother was a sufficient excuse for his violence, and the name of Lovejoy the Martyr, like the name of Bob Roy or Douglas in history, became a name to conjure with; and he scattered seed broadcast, the fruit of which was apparent in the great anti-slavery triumph of 1860. Some idea of his dramatic power may be obtained from a sermon preached at Princeton in January, 1842, on the death of his brother. After describing his murder by a cruel mob, because he would not surrender the freedom of the press, he declared solemnly, that for himself, ' come life or death, I will devote the residue of my life to the anti -slavery cause. The slaveholders and their sympathizers,' said he, ' have murdered my brother, and if another victim is needed. I am ready.'

"When I heard him speak of his brother's martyrdom, I recalled the words applied by an English poet to the reformer Wyckliffe, illustrating how much Wyckliffe's persecution had aided to spread his principles. Wycklifle's body, you will remember, was burned and his ashes thrown into the Avon, and the poet-prophet says of the incident:

" The death of Elijah P. Lovejoy, on the banks of the Mississippi, his lonely grave on the bluffs of Alton, were among the influences, and not the least, which have caused that mighty river and all its vast tributaries, on the east and on the west to flow ' unvexed to the sea.' No longer 'vexed' with slavery, the Mississippi flows on exultingly from the land of ice to the land of the sun, and all the way through soil which the blood of Lovejoy helped to make free. A monument to the Lovejoys on the summit of Pilot Knob, or some other rocky crag on the banks of that river, should tell and commemorate their story."

April 5, 1860, Mr. Lovejoy had the floor in the House of Congress, and commenced a speech on the subject of the state of the Union. It was the moment of the commencement of those turbulent times that climaxed in blood and war. It was Lovejoy's introduction to the civilized world as a slavery agitator. The scene in the halls of Congress on this occasion is probably without a parallel in history. He had talked but a few minutes, when Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, rose np from the Democratic side of the House and menacingly approached Mr. Lovejoy. said, "You shall not come over to this side of the House and shake your fist in our faces - you shall not. ' ' Many members were at once on their feet, one side demanding Lovejoy to speak from his seat; the other side vociferating he should speak - should not be intimidated. The Speaker was rapping for order, members much excited, many talking at the same time. Barksdale, of Mississippi, approached Lovejoy, called him a " blackhearted nigger thief and scoundrel," and from several were hurled all manner of epithets, as "perjurer," " nigger- thief," etc., etc. Confusion reigned supreme. The temporary Speaker called the Speaker to the chair and finally quiet was secured by Mr. Lovejoy leaving the area and delivering his speech from the clerk's desk. It seems there was a rule requiring each speaker to speak from his seat or the clerk's desk. Amid all this hubbub the only remark that escaped Mr. Lovejoy's lips was, " I cannot be intimidated." When quiet was restored he resumed from the clerk's desk. He hated slavery with the consuming, relentless hatred of an intense combative nature, and he was the supreme master of bitter, cutting taunts, which he flung into the faces of the Southern members with a serene and galling calmness. He told of a Presbyterian elder of Tennessee, taking his slave, " laying him down on his face on the ground, his hands and feet extended to their utmost tension and tied to pickets, and the Gospel whipped into him with the broad side of a handsaw, discolored whelks of sanctification being raised between the teeth every time this Gospel agency fell upon the naked and quivering flesh of the tortured convert." [Laughter]. Lovejoy resuming: " I swore to support the Constitution, because I believe it." Barksdale, interrupting: "You stand there an infamous, perjured villain." [Calls to order.] Ashmore, "Yes, he is a perjured villain; and he perjures himself every hour he occupies a seat on this floor." [Renewed calls to order.] Mr. Singleton: "And a negro-thief into the bargain." Lovejoy: "I do not believe in their construction of the Constitution." The speaker then proceeded at some length unmolested, in which he argued that the Constitution did not countenance slave-holding. Soon after he had finished this part of the address and was again pouring the vials of his wrath upon slaveholders the confusion and interruptions were again oa foot. He, when_ asked questions, only once so far noticed his questioners as to say: "I decline to yield the floor. " Toward the conclusion of his speech, however, he fired a parting salute at the fire-eating fellows who had so heaped upon him coarse epithets. "I did intend to taunt you about Harper's Ferry, but I believe I will not. I am willing to concede that you are aa brave as other men, although I do not think yon show it by this abusive language, because brave men are always calm and self-possessed. God feels no anger, for he knows no fear." * * *

"Refuse or neglect this," [to abolish slavery] ; " refuse to proclaim liberty through all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, and the exodus of the slave will be through the Red Sea."

It is somewhat difficult now to estimate the discouragements, the opposition, the taunts, and the secret and open resistance Mr. Lovejoy encountered upon his first coming to Bureau County. At that time but few people in Illinois had thought or concerned themselves about either slaves or slaveowners. They opposed it coming among them, and this was all. They cared but little what other States might do. They knew that the leading best men in the South, from Washington to Clay, were bemoaning the infliction of slavery upon their portion of the country; the Southern men they knew had advocated and taken steps looking to eventual emancipation and colonization of the slaves and thus, in the slow process of time, ridding the country, not only of slavery, but of the presence of the negro. If they thought about it at all, they respected the laws of their country, without stopping to think whether the law itself was humane or cruel. Hence, it was a rude awakening to many when the new preacher, in Princeton, began to preach that slavery was the crime of crimes, and that a slave-catcher was the vilest of criminals. In conversation the other day with a citizen of Princeton, a man growing gray and who gave the information that he had always voted for Lovejoy, and for years of all men he had ever met he was the ideal, the great and good man, yet he introduced the conversation by telling us, that when very young he had, with other bad boys, many and many a time from their covert thrown - at generally very safe range - clods at the "Abolitionist Preacher." The boys were acting out what they had caught around the fire-side and from older persons. They thought an Abolitionist a bad man through and through. They reasoned that a boy was not entirely safe anywhere near a man who would steal niggers; he might eat white boys. And our informant laughed and said he was all his life rejoiced that the little rascals were so nervous when they would see Lovejoy passing, that they probably never got near enough to really apprise the

The records of the Circuit Court of Bureau County, in early forties, are perpetual witness of the progress of Lovejoy in his cru sade against slavery. We have already given an account of the indictment at the May term, 1843, for " harboring " the fugitives - "Nancy" and "Agnes." From notes in our possession we give one or two other difficulties that found their way to the courts.

On the 1st day of August, 1843, Mr. Lovejoy and Ichabod Codding were starting from Mr. Lovejoy's residence to attend an antislavery meeting at Lamoille, this county, when they were met by a well-dressed mulatto, riding a fine horse. He told them he had staid over night in the village, and in the morning when he went to pay his bill, he had handed the landlord (Both) a $10 Kentucky bank bill; change could not be made; he then learned that the bill was 75 cents, when he tendered the exact change and wanted the $10 bill back. This the landlord refused. Lovejoy and Codding started to the village with the negro, and soon met the landlord and one Frazier; and again the bill was demanded and refused; the landlord then claiming it was only $2. The three then left for Lamoille, and in conversation with the negro, Mr. Lovejoy and Codding learned he had considerable money, and had foolishly displayed it at the tavern. The landlord and Frazier followed the negro to Lamoille, and there they went before a justice for a warrant for the negro, for having counterfeit money. When Lovejoy and Codding told the negro what was going on, and to mount his horse and fly, he started; but as soon as he was on his horse a man named Davis, who had been hired to guard the negro, drew his knife, and, getting in front of the negro, began flourishing it in a threatening manner. Davis was seized from behind, his arms pinioned, and he was thrown upon the ground on his back. His forearm was still free, and he was trying to use the knife, when Lovejoy stepped up and put his foot on the arm and held it until the knife was taken away, when he was permitted to get up, but by this time the negro was safely away.

On the 2d day of August, Davis filed an affidavit before Squire Spalding, charging Owen Lovejoy, Seth Clapp, Caleb Cook and Bertram Lockwood with assault and battery. The warrant was returned into Robert C. Masters' Court, and Spalding sitting as Associate. The following judgment was given: "After hearing all the proof and allegations it is considered that the defendant is guilty of a most outrageous assault and battery." And a fine of $50 and costs was entered against Lovejoy. The case was appealed to the Circuit Court and dismissed by the people. On the llth of the same month Ihe same Davis sued out a writ against Lovejoy and others for riot. All were bound over to the October term of the Circuit Court On trial the jury disagreed, and the case was^finally nolle pros. In September, 1849, two men from Palmyra, Mo., seized John Buckner, a negro who was mowing grass just north of Princeton. They bound him with ropes and placed him on a wagon and carried him to Tallet's, in Princeton. The anti-slavery men swore out a writ against the men, charging them with kidnapping. They were arrested and all repaired to the court house, they still holding the negro by the rope that bound him. The anti and pro-slavery men for miles around gathered and filled the court house. The Miesourians asked for a change of venue. This was argued, and while this was going on a warrant for the arrest of the negro was being made out before another Justice of the Peace. A constable soon came into the court room and placed his hand on the negro and said: " I arrest you. " That moment the negro was seized, lifted over the railing, the rope cut, and he was hustled out of the door, the door closed, and the Sheriff stood with his back to the door, pistol in hand, demanding his prisoners before the crowd could get out. The negro started as hard as he could run and after him was Lovejoy, crying out, "Bun, John!" Mr. Lovejoy's servant was on hand with a horse and he overtook the negro and put him on the horse, and he was soon at Lovejoy's home. When he reached the house he was barely able to crawl into the house from fright. In a little while the crowd arrived after the negro. Mr. Lovejoy stood at his gate admitting his friends to pass in and informing the crowd that the first one of them that attempted to enter his yard gate would do so at his peril. A man named Tallet started to enter the gate, when Mr. Lovejoy pushed the gate and caught Tallet and gave him such a terrific squeeze that it not only sobered him but made him glad to retreat. A large crowd collected in the road in front of the house. The negro was taken to vthe barn in the rear of the house and placed in the bottom of an empty wagon that had just been unloaded of wool, and then he was conveyed almost under the noses of the crowd, who stood there watching the house and supposing he was still in it. He was soon on a train on the "underground railroad" on his way to Canada. Soon as the negro was well away the crowd saw a man in the field a considerable distance away, running for life apparently. The cry went up, " There he is," and the race began. The fugitive was after a severe race overtaken, and the disgust was great when they found out it was one of their neighbors acting as a decoy, who had completely deceived them. Any of the old settlers who may remember a very dark-skinned Abolitionist of those days can figure out who it was.

The writer never met Mr. Lovejoy or had any personal acquaintance with him. He only knew him through his political reputation, and was not a little surprised when he came into the county to learn that for seventeen years Mr. Lovejoy had been the distinguished and idolized pastor of the Princeton Congregational Church. The writer was never of his political faith, nor of his church creed; he therefore need not further add that he was certainly not prejudiced toward him in this brief compilation, in which is intended to give (the space considered), a tolerably accurate account in the way of a short sketch of the public life of Mr. Lovejoy. Not the details of his great and busy career, but a rapidly drawn picture of those salient points from which the future reader may have some correct idea of the man, his strong and weak points. Another fact that was somewhat surprising was that there had been no complete and accurate biography ever published of Mr. Lovejoy. Certainly there is an opportunity here - a busy and fertile theme for the biographer that is seldom presented.

Among Mr. Lovejoy' s old neighbors we found, of course, two classes of people - those who idolized him and those who did not - and after hearing all we could, we concluded there was a grain of truth on each side. In many respects he was the most extraordinary man this age has produced - both physically and mentally. His physical courage was in its calm, quiet, deep and unruffled flow never surpassed - indeed, we doubt if it was ever equaled. He typified it completely when he deigned to notice the mad-caps and Hotspurs in Congress, in their frothing and impotent rage, their howls and shrieks and stupid epithets that they Hung at him, when he said, as quoted above, ' ' You may be as brave as any men, but you do not show it, ' God feels no anger, because he knows no fear.' "

" A man of iron constitution, he had always enjoyed the most robust health until a short time before the expiration of the last Congress. He was then stricken down by a sudden and severe illness, which detained him at the Capital some time after the Congress had expired. Returning to his home, he partially gained his health during the last summer and autumn. Taking his seat in Congress at the commencement of the session, in the hopeful and buoyant feelings of his nature he flattered himself with the idea of health recovered and energies regained, but there was something in his altered look which, even to the unpracticed eye, told of disease and death, creating in the minds of his friends the gravest apprehensions. During the holidays, in response to the pressing invitation of his friends, he visited Portland, Me., and delivered a public address on the great events which are now challenging the attention of the country and the world. It was his last effort at public speaking, and it was worthy of his name and his fame in his palmiest days, and the news of his death will reach that delighted auditory before the accents of his eloquent utterences will have died away.

"Coming back to Washington after the recess of Congress, he soon had a return of the disease which had prostrated him nearly a year before. After several weeks' confinement to his room and to his bed, he had so far re- covered as to believe himself able to partially resume his duties in the House. He attended our sittings a short time for several days, but his eye had lost its brightness, and the unwonted and ghastly pallor of his cheek told, alas! but too plainly, that death had already marked him as its early victim. Stimulated by the stirring events of the passing hour, the important legislation of Congress, and the claims of a constituency whose interests he had never neglected or betrayed, and whose convictions he had never misrepresented, the effort he made to resume his duty among us was too much for him. A partial relapse was the consequence, and then it was determined he should, for a time, leave the excitement of the Capital and visit a more southern and a more genial climate, in the hope that his shattered and broken health might yet be restored. He left here for New York City some ten days ago, but the trip thither was too hard for him to bear, and he was unable to pursue his journey further. From that time he became rapidly worse until he expired at the time stated. "