Lov: Love through Lovejoy

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


LOVE, Alfred Henry (September 7, 1830- June 29, 1913), radical pacifist, opposed slavery. As a pacifist he felt that the Civil War was not the way to end the institution.

(Who's Who in America, 1912-13)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 431-432:

LOVE, ALFRED HENRY (September 7, 1830- June 29, 1913), radical pacifist, son of William Henry and Rachel (Evans) Love, was born and spent his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a high school student he showed a bent for journalism, which later found expression in the periodicals which he edited. His marriage to Susan Henry Brown in January 1853 brought him into affiliation with the Society of Friends, although he did not at once become a formal member of a meeting. From 1853 until his death he was a package woolen commission merchant. When the Civil War came, many Quakers and almost all the members of peace organizations compromised with their principles and accepted the struggle. Unable to make this adjustment, Love defended his position in An Appeal in Vindication of Peace Principles (Philadelphia, 1862). To support the war seemed to him both unchristian and inhuman, and he pointed to the danger of "becoming absorbed in the enthusiasm of the hour" and of floating along "on the swelling tide, forgetful that popular movements always should be watched, often even doubted." Though an active and thoroughgoing friend of the negro, Love did not believe that any great good could be achieved for him through war, which, he maintained, would not be a death-blow to "Slavery in its widest sense." He refused to sell his goods for army use, and his business suffered. In 1863 he was drafted, but he refused to serve or to procure a substitute. William Lloyd Garrison, the high-priest of non-resistance, having accepted the war, wrote to Love that he believed money could be paid in lieu of service "without any compromise of the peace or non-resistance principle" (manuscript "Anti-Slavery Letters Written by William Lloyd Garrison, 1861-65," volume VI, Boston Public Library), but Love thought otherwise and maintained his position.

Since the American Peace Society had justified the Civil War, a handful of non-resistants felt the need for a new and thoroughly radical peace organization. Love assumed the leadership of this movement (Address before the Peace Convention Held in Boston, March 14 and 15, 1866) which resulted in the formation of the Universal Peace Society, later the Universal Peace Union. Its platform was expressed in its motto, "Remove the causes and remove the customs of war! Live the conditions and promulgate the principles of peace." Until his death Love was president of the organization and responsible for its periodical. The society maintained close relations with European peace groups and came to number some ten thousand American adherents. It worked for a reconciliation between North and South, for a more humanitarian treatment of the Indian, for the rights of women, and for the abolition of capital punishment. It also labored for the peaceful adjustment of disputes, local as well as international. In the eighties Love became a pioneer in popularizing the idea of the arbitration of disputes between capital and labor, his own services as a mediator in strikes attesting his faith in the efficacy of pacific principles.

Love was not unknown to congressmen, secretaries of state, and presidents from Lincoln to Wilson. He urged party conventions and presidents- elect to mention international arbitration in their platforms and messages. He instigated delegations and petitions praying for the outlawry of war by constitutional amendment, for the negotiation of permanent treaties of arbitration, and for an international court. He was an uncompromising opponent of militarism in all its forms. Again. and again he wrote vigorously if naively to the secretary of state and to foreign governments suggesting peaceful means for preventing a threatening war. His letters and cables on the eve of the Spanish-American war aroused such indignation among certain patriots that he was burned in effigy. His uncompromising pacifism seemed, in the opinion of certain moderate friends of the cause, to injure the peace movement by making it appear unpractical. As the cause became more realistic and scientific Love's work, which he carried on courageously against great odds, appeared to some of the new leaders sentimental and ineffective. Yet his service in keeping alive the high standard of pacifism in the dark, discouraging days during and after the Civil War, and in forcing the ques tion upon skeptical politicians and an indifferent people, gives him a secure though minor place in the history of American idealism. Love's wife, two sons and a daughter, survived him.

[The above sketch is based largely on material in the periodicals which Love edited: Bond of Peace, Voice of Peace, and The Peacemaker, published in Philadelphia. Consult also: Who's Who in America, 1912-13; A Brief Synopsis of Work Proposed, Aided, and Accomplished by the Universal Peace Union (1912); the Advocate of Peace, November 1913; Friends' Intelligencer, July 26, 1913; Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Ledger (Philadelphia), June 30, 1913. The "Miscellaneous Letters" in the Department of State contain many letters from Love.]

M.E.C.  


LOVE, Thomas C., New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, p. 104)


LOVEJOY, Elijah Parrish, 1802-1837, newspaper publisher, editor, writer, clergyman, abolitionist leader.  Murdered by anti-abolitionists.  In 1833, he became editor of the St. Louis newspaper the Observer.  In the paper, he opposed slavery and supported graduate emancipation.  Due to threats, he moved the paper to Alton, Illinois, in 1836.  There, his life was threatened and his press was destroyed three times by pro-slave mobs.  A fourth press was established on November 7, 1837, and was immediately destroyed and during the attack, Lovejoy was shot and killed by the mob. 

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 6, 20, 90-94, 96, 105, 269; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 92, 223-226, 232; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 268-272, 318; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 38-50, 67, 116, 249, 277, 292, 293, 295, 296, 279, 375, 377; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 378-380, 601-602; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, p. 434; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 541-543; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 14, p. 4; Dillon, Merton L. Elijah P. Lovejoy: Abolitionist Editor. 1961.).  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 434-435:

LOVEJOY, ELIJAH PARISH (November 9, 1802-November 7, 1837), the "martyr abolitionist," was born at Albion, Maine, the son of a clergyman, Reverend Daniel Lovejoy, and Elizabeth (Pattee) Lovejoy, both of old New England stock. He graduated from Waterville (now Colby) College in 1826, taught school until May 1827, then emigrated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he again taught school and for a short time edited a Whig newspaper. Determining to follow his father into the ministry he returned to the East in 1832 to attend the seminary at Princeton. He was licensed to preach by the Philadelphia Presbytery in April 1833 and went back to St. Louis as editor of the Presbyterian weekly for the far West, the St. Louis Observer. On March 4, 1835, he married Celia Ann French, the daughter of a nearby planter. His editorial career began peacefully enough, but a spirit like his could not be peaceful long. Fired by the "expanding benevolence" that inspired his church in the early thirties, he enlisted his paper in the Presbyterian war against slavery, intemperance, and "popery." The border-states movement for the gradual abolition of slavery, so nearly successful in Kentucky and Virginia, had not extended to Missouri; and St. Louis, river port for the lower South, would hear no discussion of the subject. Protests multiplied, and rather than moderate his tone, in 1836 Lovejoy moved to Alton, Illinois, twenty-five miles up the river.

At that time Alton was the most prosperous city in Illinois. Emigrants from New England and the Eastern states made up its population; and the doctrine Lovejoy had preached in St. Louis, the evil of slavery and its gradual emancipation, was their own as well. Abolitionism, as the doctrine of immediate emancipation then was called, Lovejoy had denounced in the strongest terms. But even as he left St. Louis for Alton his views were changing. At the next General Assembly, which he attended shortly before he moved to Alton (July 1836), the equivocating course of that body toward abolition petitions so angered him that with his own indignant pen he wrote the protest which the abolitionists published to the church. An abolitionist by conviction and sympathy, if not by affiliation, he returned to edit the Alton Observer.

At the outset he encountered misfortune. His press arrived from St. Louis on a Sabbath morning and Lovejoy's Sabbatarian convictions compelled him to leave it unguarded on the wharf. Some time during Sunday night it was dumped into the river. But the good citizens of Alton called a public meeting, unanimously condemned the outrage and-carefully expressing their disapproval of abolitionism-pledged the money for a new press. On his part Lovejoy expressed his gratitude and promised to edit his paper in the interest of the church alone. That promise he could not keep. Week by week his abolitionism crept into the columns of the Observer: reports of his local anti-slavery society; his abolition resolutions to the Presbyterian Synod; his correspondence with a score of fearless agitators here and there in the state; and even accounts of the progress of the cause in the nation. Finally, July 4, 1837, he printed a call for a meeting of the anti-slavery host at Alton to form a state auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society; and after numerous delays the state society was organized on the 26th of October. Alton citizens were outraged. Mobs destroyed the Observer press again and yet again; but each time the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society sent another. Lovejoy wrote defiantly: "These mobs will cease as soon as some of the mobites are hung up by the neck, and not before. . . . Mercy no less than Justice calls for a summary-execution of some of the wretches as an example to the rest."

After the founding of the state society the press was destroyed again, but news soon arrived that another press from Ohio was on the way. Lovejoy's friends caught his defiant spirit. Sixty young abolitionists from towns nearby assembled with arms in their hands, determined that this press should not go the way of the others. At a public meeting leading citizens implored Lovejoy to leave, but he replied that he was ready for martyrdom. The press arrived on November 7 and was placed in a warehouse under guard. Merchants closed their stores and the whole city waited in dread for the night. An armed mob gathered in the darkness and stormed the warehouse, but the guard fought them back. Some of the mob tried to set the warehouse on fire, and Lovejoy, rushing out to prevent it, was shot dead.

[The chief source for Lovejoy's biography is the Memoir of the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy (1838), by Joseph C. and Owen Lovejoy. One of the armed band, Henry Tanner, reported the trials of the rioters, The Alton Trials (1838). His other later accounts are largely based on the Memoir. Edward Beecher's Narrative of the Riots at Alton (1838) is an honest but prejudiced account. Similar in the contrary direction is the account in Thos. Ford, A History of Illinois (1854). Essential to an understanding of the story as part of the national anti-slavery agitation are the Alton Observer 1836-37, the Philanthropist, 1836-38, and the New York Evangelist, 1835-38. For Lovejoy's ancestry see C. E. Lovejoy, The Lovejoy Genealogy (1930).]

G. H. B.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

LOVEJOY, Elijah Parish, abolitionist, born in Albion, Maine, 9 November, 1802; died in Alton, Illinois, 7 November, 1837. He was the son of a Presbyterian clergy-man, was graduated at Waterville college in 1826, and in 1827 went to St. Louis, Missouri, and established a school. He contributed prose and verse to the newspapers, was known of as a vigorous writer, and in 1829 became editor of a political paper, in which he advocated the claim of Henry Clay as a candidate for the presidency. In as 1832, in consequence of a change in his religious views, he decided to become a minister, and, after a course of theological study at Princeton, was licensed to preach by the Philadelphia presbytery on 18 April, 1833. On his return to St. Louis he established a religious he paper called the “Observer,” in which he reprobated slavery. Repeated threats of mob violence impelled him to remove his paper in July, 1836, to Alton, Illinois. His press was destroyed by mobs three times within a year; yet he procured a fourth one, and was engaged in setting it up, when a mob, composed mostly of Missourians, again attacked the office. With his friends he defended the building, and one of his assailants was killed. After the attacking party had apparently withdrawn, Mr. Lovejoy opened the door, when he was instantly pierced by five bullets and died in a few minutes. His “Memoir” was published by his brothers, Joseph C. and Owen, with an introduction by John Q. Adams (New York, 1838). See also, “Narrative of Riots at Alton, in Connection with the Death of Lovejoy,” by Edward Beecher at (Alton, 1838), and “The Martyrdom of Lovejoy,” by Henry Tanner (Chicago, 1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35.

Chapter: “The Alton Tragedy, --Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.

On the 7th of November, 1837, the cause of freedom received its first baptism of blood. On that day Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a mob at Alton, Illinois. No previous event had so startled, alarmed, and fixed the attention of the more conscientious and thoughtful portion of the country. Nothing had so clearly indicated to antislavery men the nature of the conflict in which they were engaged, the desperate character of the foe with which they were grappling.

Mr. Lovejoy was a native of Maine, and a graduate of Waterville College in 1826. At the age of twenty-four he went to the West, and became a teacher in St. Louis. Two years afterward he became the editor of a political journal of the National Republican party, and an active supporter of Henry Clay. In 1832 he united with the Presbyterian Church, entered for a brief period the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and, in the autumn of that year, returned to Missouri, and established the St. Louis " Observer," a weekly religious journal. During the ensuing year, while avowing his hostility to immediate emancipation, he expressed the opinion that, if slavery could be removed from Missouri, that great State would start forward in a race of energy and improvement which would place her in the front rank of her sister States. While absent from the city, at a meeting of the synod, an excitement commenced in regard to his strictures on slavery; and the alarmed proprietors of the paper issued a card, declaring their opposition to the wild scheme of the Abolitionists. Before leaving home, he had received a communication from nine leading citizens of St. Louis, friends and supporters of the “Observer," begging him to "pass over in silence everything connected with the subject of slavery." Upon that communication he made the indorsement that he did not yield to the wishes expressed, had been persecuted for not doing so, but had kept a good conscience, which had more than repaid him for all he had suffered. “I have sworn eternal hostility to slavery, and by the blessing of God I will never go back."

Returning to St. Louis, Mr. Lovejoy issued an address to his excited fellow-citizens, in which he maintained with signal boldness the right to discuss questions pertaining to slavery, or any other evil which concerned the interests of humanity. “I deem it he said, “my duty to take my stand upon the Constitution. Here is firm ground; I feel it to be such; and I do most respectfully but decidedly declare to you my fixed determination to maintain this ground. We have slaves, it is true; but I am not one." While avowing his purpose never to surrender the freedom of speech and of the press, he expressed the hope that he should maintain these rights with the meekness and humility that became a Christian, but especially a Christian minister. He reminded the inflamed people of St. Louis that blood kindred to that which flowed in his veins had flowed freely on the plains of Lexington and on the heights of Bunker Hill, and he assured them that his blood should flow as freely as if it were water, " ere," he said," I surrender the right to plead the cause of truth and righteousness before my fellow-citizens and in the face of all opposers." Protesting against all attempts, by whosoever made, to interfere with the liberty of the press, he declared his fixed purpose to submit to no such dictation. “I am," he said,” prepared to abide the consequences. I have appealed to the Constitution and the laws of my country; if they fail to protect me, I appeal to God, and with him I cheerfully rest my cause."

At the request of the proprietors of the "Observer,'' he surrendered its editorship, and removed to Alton. The paper soon passing into other hands as payment of a debt, its new owner presented it to him, and he at once returned and entered upon its publication. In the spring of 1836 an excited mob took Francis J. Mcintosh, a mulatto, from the jail, where he had been lodged for fatally stabbing one officer and wounding another who had arrested him, carried him out of the city, chained him to a tree, and burned him to death. As the matter came before the grand jury, Judge Lawless in his charge expressed the astounding sentiment that if a mob be hurried on to its deeds of violence and blood by some “mysterious, metaphysical, and almost electric frenzy," participators in it are absolved from guilt, and are not proper subjects of punishment. If such be the fact, he said, “act not at all in the matter; the case then transcends your jurisdiction, it is beyond the reach of human law."

For commenting on this revolting deed, and the still more revolting judicial opinion, Mr. Lovejoy's office was entered and destroyed by a mob. He removed the press to Alton; only, however, to see it seized upon the bank of the river and broken into fragments. A meeting of citizens was held at once, and a pledge given to .reimburse him for his loss. Mr. Lovejoy assured them that it was not his purpose to establish an abolition, but a religious press. Indeed, he was not an Abolitionist, though he expected to live and die an uncompromising enemy to slavery, and should hold himself at liberty to speak and write as he pleased on any subject. In July, 1837, a public meeting assembled, bitterly denounced the “Observer " for its publication of articles favorable to abolitionism, and censured its editor. To a committee appointed by this meeting Mr. Lovejoy declared, with great firmness, that liberty of speech is something not to be called in question, -that it was a right which came from his Maker, belonging to man as man, and inalienable.

Although the " Observer " was no longer printed in St. Louis, its citizens and presses demanded that Illinois should abate what they regarded as a nuisance, under the penalty of losing the trade of slaveholding States, --the same rod, indeed, so long and successfully held in terrorem by the domineering South over the abject North. Consequently, in the month of August, Mr. Lovejoy's office and press were again destroyed, during his absence; and he was most grossly insulted on his return. Another press was purchased, and stored in the warehouse of Gerry and Miller. The mob again assembled, broke open the building, destroyed the press, and threw the fragments into the Mississippi. A few days afterward he was mobbed again at the house of his mother-in-law, in St. Charles, Missouri, on his return from church, where he had officiated; and he was compelled to leave clandestinely to save his life.
Meetings were held in Alton by the excited inhabitants to consider the question of the longer publication of the paper. At one held on the. 3d of November, at his request he was permitted to speak in' his own behalf. With manly firmness and Christian boldness he reminded his fellow-citizens that he respected their feelings, and acted in opposition to them with great regret. He valued their good opinion; but he must be, he said, “governed by higher considerations than either the favor or the fear of man. I am impelled to the course I have taken because I fear God. As I shall answer to my God, in the great day, I dare not abandon my sentiments, or cease in all proper ways to propagate them." Reminding the meeting that it he had committed any crime they could convict him, as they had the public sentiment and juries on their side, he asked: "If I have been guilty of no violation of law, why am I hunted up and down continually like a partridge upon the mountain? Why am I threatened with the tar-barrel?  Why am I waylaid every, day, and from night to night? Why is my life in jeopardy every hour? " Planting himself on his unquestionable rights, he declared the question to be, " Whether my property shall be protected; whether I shall be suffered to go home to my family at night without being assailed and threatened with tar and feathers and assassination; whether my afflicted wife, whose life has been in jeopardy from continued alarm and excitement, shall night after night be driven from her sick-bed into the garret, to save her life from brickbats and the violence of the mob." This allusion to his family overcame his feelings, and he burst into tears. The sympathy of the meeting was deeply excited. Many sobbed aloud, and even some of his enemies wept. Recovering himself, he begged forgiveness for having been betrayed into weakness by the thought of his, family; and he assured the meeting that he had no personal fears. Admitting that he was powerless, he said: “I know you can tar and feather me, hang me up, or put me in the Mississippi. But what then? Where shall I go? I have been made to feel if I am not safe in Alton I shall not be safe anywhere."

There were some who, while insisting on the suppression of his press and driving him from Alton, expressed the wish that no unnecessary disgrace should be affixed to him. To such suggestions he replied: “I reject all such compassion. You cannot disgrace me. Scandal, falsehood, and calumny have done their worst. My shoulders have borne the burden till it sits easy upon them. I, and I alone, can disgrace myself; and the deepest of all disgraces would be at a time like this to deny my Master 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." Reminding the meeting that he had, on a recent visit to St. Charles, been torn from the frantic embrace of his family, he closed with this declaration: “I have concluded, after consultation with my friends, and earnestly seeking counsel of God, to remain at Alton, and here to insist on protection in the exercise of my rights. If the civil authorities refuse to protect me, I must look to God; and, if I die, I am determined to make my grave in Alton. Sir, I dare not flee away from Alton. Should I attempt it, I should feel that the angel of the Lord, with his flaming sword, was pursuing me wherever I went. It is because I fear God that I am not afraid of all who oppose me in this city."
His earnestness and manifest sincerity made a deep impression upon the audience. Dr. Edward Beecher, who was present, thus describes the scene: -- “I have been affected oftentimes with the power of intellect and eloquence; but never was I so overcome as at this hour. He made no display, there was no rhetorical decoration, no violence of action. All was native truth, and deep, pure, and tender feeling. Many a hard face did I see wet with tears as he struck the chords of feeling to which God made the soul to respond. Even his bitter enemies wept. It reminded me of Paul before Festus, and of Luther at Worms."

The crowd, however, then present, represented too faithfully the popular sentiment of that section of the country to be much controlled by the faith or eloquence of such a man. They were far better prepared to respond to the counter appeals of John Hogan, then a Methodist minister and afterward a Democratic member of Congress from St. Louis, who, launching his vile epithets and fierce invectives upon Mr. Lovejoy and the Abolitionists, inflamed the minds and stirred up to deeper frenzy that class of men of which mobs are made.
The city was in a state of intense excitement. Violence was anticipated, as it had been foreshadowed by the disgraceful and disorganizing proceedings which had broken up a convention at Upper Alton, during the previous week, and had defeated the purposes of its original promoters. The call was to “the friends of the slave and of free discussion in Illinois "; and yet, by packing the convention with men of an opposite faith, under the lead of W. F. Linder, attorney-general of the State, a series of resolutions was adopted indorsing slavery and proclaiming that all interference with it should be "discountenanced." And by the same vote that sustained these resolutions was the convention adjourned sine die. The men, however, who called the convention, were not to be thus baffled. A subsequent meeting was called at the house of Reverend Mr. Hurlburt of the same place; and, although the formation of an antislavery society had not been one of the fixed objects of the original convention, it was now seen to be demanded, and it was accordingly effected. Officers were chosen, and a most able address and declaration of sentiments, from the pen of Dr. Beecher, were sent forth. To add to the flame already burning so fiercely, a colonization meeting was held about that time, at which fiery harangues were made, more hostile to antislavery and its friends than to slavery and its abettors. Of course, a conflict so acrimonious and determined between principles so radical and antagonistic must culminate in something more sanguinary than words. The arrival of another press was the occasion of a demonstration which ended in arson and blood.

The enemies of Mr. Lovejoy had determined to seize and destroy it on its arrival; while a few friends, equally in earnest, had determined to defend it. As the former were watching for its coming, about fifty of the latter assembled at the stone warehouse where it was to be stored on its arrival, and organized an armed force for its defence. After that organization had been effected, about thirty remained, under the command of a city constable. The looked-for press arrived at three o'clock on the morning of the 7th of November, and the intelligence of its arrival was made known by the blowing of horns. The mayor, John McKrum, went to the warehouse and aided in storing it. The utmost excitement, however, prevailed during the day, though the mayor came to the conclusion, after making inquiries, that no further violence was intended. There being no sign of an assault on the building, at nine o'clock in the evening most of its defenders retired, leaving about a dozen, willing to risk their lives, if needful, in defence of Mr. Lovejoy and his property.

An hour or two afterward there came from the grog-shops thirty or forty persons, who knocked at the door and demanded the press. Mr. Gilman, one of the owners of the warehouse, informed them that it would not be given up; that they had been authorized by the mayor to defend the property, and they should do it at the hazard of their lives. Presenting a pistol, the leader announced that they were resolved to have it at any sacrifice. Stones were thrown, windows broken, and shots were fired at the building. These shots were returned, and several of the rioters were wounded, one mortally. Ladders were obtained and preparations were made for firing the building, and the cry was raised: "Burn them out." The mayor, accompanied by a justice of the peace, was sent by the mob to propose the surrender of the press on condition that no one should be injured. To the demand of Mr. Gilman that the mayor should call upon the citizens to save his building, the latter replied that the mob was too strong, that he had failed to persuade and was powerless to command. Admitting the lawful right of persons within the building to defend the property, he retired and reported the result w the rioters, who raised the cry: " Fire the building and shoot every d-'-d Abolitionist as he leaves! " With the aid of ladders, the mob mounted the building and fired the roof. Five of the defenders sallied forth from the building, fired upon and dispersed the mob, and returned. Mr. Lovejoy and two others then stepped outside of the building, were fired upon by rioters concealed by a pile of lumber, and Mr. Lovejoy received five balls, three of them in his breast. Returning at once to the counting-room, he expired almost instantly, exclaiming, “I am shot! I am shot!" One of his friends was wounded, but not fatally.

After his death, those in the building offered to surrender; but their offer was declined. One of the number, going out for the purpose of making terms with the rioters, was severely wounded. Most of them left the building, but were fired upon in their attempts to escape. The mob then rushed into the building, seized the press, broke it, and threw the fragments into the river. The next day Mr. Lovejoy's body was borne to his home, amid the heartless rejoicings and scoffings of those who had destroyed his property and taken his life. Thus bravely fell one of the most heroic of that number of noble and earnest men who early consecrated themselves to the great and glorious purpose of maintaining, at fearful odds, that essential palladium of a republic, -freedom of thought, speech, and the press. The conduct of the mayor was glaringly vacillating, inefficient, and open to criticism and censure. He himself admitted that his directions, on an occasion when the majesty of law should have asserted its supremacy, had been the advice of a citizen, rather than the command of an officer. There were no demonstrations friendly or hostile at Mr. Lovejoy's burial, save a simple prayer at his grave. He was buried on a bluff, overlooking, in its peaceful repose, the rolling river and busy town beneath. For many years no stone marked the spot. Not long since, however, an admirer and friend of the martyr procured a simple monument, with this inscription:

Hic jacet
LOVEJOY.
Jam parce sepulto.
"Here lies Lovejoy; now spare his grave."

What a change has a third of a century wrought. Then the youthful minister of the gospel, hunted, in his own touching words, like a partridge on the mountains, and appealing in vain for protection against the infuriated mob, found the officers of government and the leaders of public opinion awed by the demon of slavery, rather than inspired by the genius of liberty. Now, that mob dispersed, many of its members and leaders known to have come to a violent and ignominious end, and that terrible system, the guilty source of all that violence, no longer existing. The victim himself is admiringly cherished in the nation's memory, and is sure of a grateful mention on the pages of its history.

The murder of Lovejoy made a deep impression upon the country. The friends of slavery and the enemies of free discussion applauded, or at best excused, the bloody deed, while the friends of liberty and of the freedom of speech and press received the news-with profound sorrow and alarm. They saw in it a new revelation of the magnitude and serious character of the contest on which they had entered. They saw, too, that the conflict was not to be the bloodless encounter of ideas alone, but one in which might be involved scenes of bloody violence and personal hazard and harm. Had they understood the full significance of that sanguinary act, and the desperate character of their foe, as revealed in the events of subsequent years, their alarm might well have been greater. 

The Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society was at once convened in Boston, and a series of resolutions was adopted declaring that the guilt of that bloody tragedy was not confined to the immediate actors therein; that it was one of the natural and inevitable consequences of tolerating the system of slavery; and that in the murder of this Christian martyr the church, the press, and the people, who justified the enslavement of their countrymen, instigated riots, and connived at the prostration of lawful authority, had participated to a greater or less extent.

When the intelligence of the Alton tragedy, as it was commonly characterized, reached Boston, Dr. William Ellery Channing and a hundred of its citizens applied for the use of Faneuil Hall, to give expression to their horror at this murder of a Christian clergyman. But their application was rejected. This refusal, and especially the reasons assigned therefor, greatly increased the popular indignation and apprehension; affording, as it did, but another illustration of the national vassalage and subserviency to the Slave Power, when even the doors of the Cradle of Liberty were rudely closed against those who would mourn over the martyrdom of one of its bravest and most heroic defenders. Men of all parties and sects were greatly excited. With the fearless promptitude demanded by the crisis, Dr. Channing addressed an appeal to the citizens of Boston to reverse this arbitrary action of the city government. Avowing that the purpose of the proposed meeting was to maintain the sacredness and freedom of the press against all assaults, he declared that to intimate that such action did not express the public opinion of Boston, and that it would provoke a mob, was to" pronounce the severest libel upon that city." “Has it come to this?” he asked. “Has Boston fallen so low? May not its citizens be trusted to come together to express the great principles of liberty for which their fathers died? Are our fellow-citizens to be murdered in the act of defending their property and of assuming the right of free discussion? and is it unsafe in this metropolis to express abhorrence of the deed? If such be our degradation, we ought to know the awful truth; and those among us who retain a portion of the spirit of our ancestors should set themselves to work to recover their degenerate posterity." He asserted that Boston, by this action of her city authorities, had bade Alton go on to destroy the press and put down the liberty of speech. 

This thrilling appeal from one occupying Dr. Channing's position made a deep impression. A public meeting was called at the old Supreme Court room to "take into consideration the reasons assigned by the mayor and aldermen for withholding Faneuil Hall, and to act in the premises as may be deemed expedient." The room was filled to overflowing. George Bond was made chairman, and Benjamin F. Hallett was chosen secretary. After the reading of Dr. Channing's letter, a series of pertinent resolutions, offered by Mr. Hallett, was discussed and unanimously adopted. A committee of two from each ward was appointed to renew the application, which happily was successful.

On the 8th of December the meeting was holden. The hall was filled to repletion by the citizens of Boston and vicinity. Jonathan Phillips, a much respected citizen, was called to the chair, and opened the meeting with a brief and pertinent speech. Dr. Channing then made an eloquent and impressive address. A series of resolutions, also from his pen, was read by Mr. Hallett, and seconded and eloquently supported by George S. Hillard.
Thus far everything had been decorous, dignified, and in keeping with the occasion. The addresses had been listened to with respectful attention, if not with unquestioning approbation. At this point James T. Austin, attorney-general of the Commonwealth, a prominent lawyer, well known in Faneuil Hall, a trained party-leader and most adroit caucus-speaker, made an inflammatory and exciting speech. It was vociferously applauded by the riotous element of the meeting, which, it was estimated, constituted one third of the assembly. Standing in that hall, consecrated to liberty and redolent with the memories of its martyrs, the attorney-general of Massachusetts unblushingly declared that Lovejoy was not only presumptuous and imprudent while he lived, but that “he died as the fool dieth." He compared, with equal violence to truth and taste, the murderers of Lovejoy with the men who destroyed the tea in Boston harbor. He declared that wherever the abolition fever raged there were mobs and murders. Alluding to the bondmen in the most offensive terms, he said:--

'' We have a menagerie here, with lions, tigers, a hyena and elephant, a jackass or two, and monkeys in plenty. Suppose, now, some new cosmopolite, some man of philanthropic feelings, not only toward man, but animals, who believes that all are entitled to freedom as an inalienable right, should engage in the humane task of giving freedom to these wild beasts of the forest, some of whom are nobler than their keepers; or, having discovered some new mode of reaching their understanding, should try to induce them to break their cages and be free. The people of Missouri had as much reason to be afraid of their slaves as we should have to be afraid of the wild beasts of the menagerie. They had the same dread of Lovejoy that we should have of the supposed instigator, if we really believed the bars would be broken and the caravan let loose to prowl about our streets."

Having pronounced this disgraceful and seditious harangue, the attorney-general retired. Wendell Phillips ascended the platform, and was met with the hostile demonstrations of the partisans of Austin, who had just applauded so vociferously his unfeeling and inhuman appeal to their vile passions and still viler prejudices. Mr. Phillips was then a young lawyer, unknown to most present, who had gone to the meeting with no intention of taking any part in its proceedings. Though his first words were met with boisterous outcries, he expressed the hope that he would be permitted to avow his surprise at the sentiments just uttered by such a man, and at the applause they had received in that hall. He characterized and condemned that gentleman's language in the strongest terms of reprobation, though it was done in terms and tones of thrilling eloquence. " When I heard," he said, " the gentleman lay down principles which placed the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips," pointing to their portraits in the hall, " would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slanderer of the dead."

These words were received with mingled demonstrations of censure and applause. “Sir," continued Mr. Phillips, "for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of the Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up." Here the uproar became great, and he could not be heard. William Sturgis, an eminent Boston merchant, ascended the platform and placed himself by the side of Mr. Phillips; but he, too, was met by the loud cries of the excited rioters. “Phillips or nobody," was their fiendish cry. “Make him take it back! He sha' n't go on until he takes it back! " Obtaining a hearing, Mr. Sturgis said: " I did not come here to take any part in this discussion, nor do I intend to; but I do e1itreat you, fellow citizens, by everything you hold sacred, I conjure you by every association connected with this hall, consecrated by our fathers to freedom of discussion, that you listen to any man who addresses you in a decorous manner."
Resuming, Mr. Phillips firmly and peremptorily declared that he could not take back his words, and reminded the excited throng that the attorney-general needed not, their hisses against one so young, whose voice had never before been heard in that hall. He closed his speech with the declaration that "when liberty was in danger Faneuil Hall had the right, and it was her duty, to strike the key-note for the Union; that the passage of the resolutions, in spite of the opposition, led by the attorney-general, will show more decidedly the deep indignation with which Boston regards this outrage."

By this brave and brilliant speech Mr. Phillips, by one single bound, placed himself among the foremost and most popular of American orators, a position he has maintained by the increasing suffrages of the nation. Then began that advocacy of human rights which for more than a generation he continued with tireless and persistent zeal. To it he consecrated culture, learning, and that marvelous eloquence on which the multitudes of a generation hung with never-waning delight. Fearless and fierce in his denunciation of the wrongs of the oppressed, he was always merciless in his castigation of the oppressor and his abettors. Confident, too, in his own plans and modes of action, he was, perhaps, too apt to be critical, censorious, and sometimes intolerant toward those who were equally honest, earnest, and unselfish in their devotion to the same cause to which his and their labors were alike consecrated. But if some others were more judicious and practical in action, none equaled him on the platform and few surpassed him with the pen.
Hundreds, however, went from that meeting unchanged in thought and purpose, even by the terrible event that occasioned it, by the imposing presence and fervid eloquence which characterized it, or by the humiliating utterances that disgraced it. The virus of slavery had so poisoned the public mind and heart that the sentiments and feelings of the large body of the citizens of Boston were more nearly expressed by the brutal harangue of Austin than by the classic words of Channing or the fervid and indignant eloquence of Phillips. They still believed, with Hubbard Winslow, a Congregational clergyman of that city, who, within a month, in his Thanksgiving discourse, asserted that “the unchristian principles and measures” of the Abolitionists tended to fill the land “with violence and blood "; and that the mournful disaster at Alton was but their legitimate result. They accepted, too, his strange and subversive doctrine that '' republican liberty is not the liberty to say and do what one pleases; but liberty to say and do what the prevailing voice and will of the brotherhood will allow and protect."

The executive committee of the American Antislavery Society set apart the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims for simultaneous meetings throughout the free States, to commemorate the tragic death of Mr. Lovejoy. To this call the Abolitionists very generally responded. Many meetings were held in various portions of the country, and the essential barbarism and cruelty of slavery were made to be more distinctly seen and apprehended in the light of that bloody deed. As a legitimate result large accessions were made to the ranks of the pronounced and avowed Abolitionists. 
A special meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society was held in Boston. Amos A. Phelps gave a detailed statement of the tragic affair at Alton. William Lloyd Garrison spoke briefly, but with his usual strong and severe denunciation, not only of the mob, but of the cause which inspired it. Orestes A. Brownson defended, with great vigor and force, freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press. Of the martyred dead Mr. Phillips spoke eloquently. He referred mournfully to the alleged fact that the rioters at Alton were heard encouraging each other with references to “old Boston." He characterized, with becoming indignation, her humiliation when her name was made “the motto and war-cry of the mob."

Edmund Quincy, like Mr. Phillips, was then a young Boston lawyer. He had become somewhat interested in the discussions upon slavery, but as yet had not fully committed himself to the antislavery cause. But this event solved all doubts, removed all hesitations, and fixed his determination. He came to that meeting to lay, as an offering, his talents and social position upon the altar of an unpopular cause, dripping with the first fresh blood of martyrdom. In this his first antislavery speech he eloquently enunciated and vindicated the fundamental principles of the conflict, and referred, with much beauty and pathos, to " the sublime idea that throughout the vast extent of the free portions of this continent the sons and daughters of New England are gathered together, on this the birthday of their common mother, to pay due honor to the memory of a brother who has willingly laid down his life in defence of those principles of liberty to which she owed her birth." His labors, then commenced, continued with unabated activity until, by the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery disappeared; when, with Mr. Garrison, he retired from an organization which that great consummation seemed to them to render no longer necessary. Mr. Quincy had not the mellifluous, brilliant, and impressive eloquence of Mr. Phillips; but he brought to the conflict unrivalled wit, a polished and trenchant pen that had few equals. By voice and pen he rendered effective service to the antislavery cause, though often more caustic than charitable toward an opponent, and sometimes apparently more anxious to make a point than to do strict justice, even to a co-laborer. He presented, too, with great clearness, the views of that class of reformers with whom he acted, and was among the ablest exponents of that type of abolitionism of which Mr. Garrison was the recognized leader. His reports, while secretary of the Antislavery Society, were models of patient and exhaustive research, of keen and brilliant rhetoric. Nor can they now be read without vivid impressions of the desperate nature of the disease which was then afflicting, disgracing, and endangering the nation, and clear conceptions of the remedies he and those he represented were endeavoring to apply to its cure.

While the great body of the Abolitionists and friends of free discussion thus honored the self-sacrificing and martyr spirit of Mr. Lovejoy, and justified his heroic defence of sacred rights assailed by armed ruffianism, there were a few among them who did not applaud, but rather condemned, his course. Especially was this true of a section of that small, active, but rather pugnacious portion of the New England Abolitionists who had adopted the extreme doctrine of non-resistance. They, deeming Mr. Lovejoy's position inconsistent with their own, not only questioned its wisdom, but even characterized it as indefensible. Such manifestations, however, clearly revealed the impracticable tendencies of their views, and foreshadowed not only the manifest harm and hindrance they unquestionably occasioned to the antislavery labors of the most of those who entertained them, but also the heavy burden they laid upon the cause itself.

Source:  Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 1.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 374-389.


LOVEJOY, Joseph C., Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Corresponding Secretary, 1846, Executive Committee, 1846,1850.

(Sinha, 2016, p. 465; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)


LOVEJOY, Julia Louisa

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35)


LOVEJOY, Owen, 1811-1864, clergyman, abolitionist, U.S. Congressman.  Member and Manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society and  Illinois Anti-Slavery Society.  Active in Underground Railroad.  Member, Illinois State Legislature.  Brother of anti-slavery newspaper publisher, Elijah Parrish Lovejoy.  Like his brother, Owen Lovejoy was a strong supporter of William Lloyd Garrison.  He was elected to Congress in 1856 and actively supported the abolition of slavery in Congress until his death in 1864. 

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 6, 11, 13, 90-116, 265-270; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4, 48, 91, 131, 188; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 141, 196; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, p. 435; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 14, p. 6; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 6, Pt. 1, pp. 435-436:

LOVEJOY, OWEN.  Elijah Lovejoy had just begun active abolition propaganda and Owen speedily enlisted in the anti-slavery cause. In the growing excitement in Alton he stood steadfastly by his brother, and on the final tragic night after Elijah had been killed, Owen knelt beside his body and vowed "never to forsake the cause that had been sprinkled with his brother's blood." After completing his theological studies, he served as minister of the Congregational church at Princeton, Illinois, for seventeen years. In January 1843 he married a widow, Eunice (Storrs) Dunham, who bore him seven children. He was a popular and devoted minister, but persistently kept his vow, never losing an opportunity to testify to the wrong of slavery. During the decade from 1840 to 1850 he spoke fearlessly for the cause wherever he could find a hearing, despite the Illinois state law prohibiting abolition meetings. Frequently he encountered violence, but his unflinching boldness and the memorable name he bore saved him from injury. His colleague in the Illinois agitation, Ichabod Codding, was an abler orator, but Lovejoy, more than any other man, advanced abolition sentiment in the state.

During the next decade, Lovejoy became increasingly influential; and in 1854, when the Republican organization began, he was elected to the state legislature to lead the forces of freedom. In Illinois the new party embraced antiforeign "Know-Nothings" and Germans representing the hundred thousand foreign-born in Illinois, disgruntled Democrats and their enemies- old-line Whigs, and, feared by all, the Abolitionists. Lovejoy believed that only one man in Illinois could discipline this "rag-tag and bob-tail gang" into party organization, and that man was Abraham Lincoln. He urged Lincoln to lead the new movement, but Lincoln replied that the time was not yet ripe. He even tried to force Lincoln's hand by placing his name at the head of the state central committee for the Republican party. However, when Lincoln came to the Bloomington convention in 1856, it was Lovejoy who compelled the radicals to relinquish their abolition program and to accept Lincoln's conservative leadership. The same year Lovejoy was elected to Congress. There and in the Republican conventions at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia he was a radical leader; but in Illinois he was still Lincoln's henchman. When Lincoln stood for the Senate, Lovejoy put all his influence at his disposal. It was a dangerous gift. If Lincoln's opponents could "make Lincoln hang on Lovejoy's coat tails for Republican strength," the semblance of a bargain with Lovejoy would "choke Lincoln to death." Only Lovejoy's self-effacement prevented this catastrophe. Though he stumped the state in Lincoln's interest, he suffered Lincoln's repudiation of abolitionism gladly. While his contest with Douglas was lost, Lincoln thereby captured radical support, without losing his name for conservatism, for the presidential contest two years later.

In Congress Lovejoy assailed slavery and the South with a violence equaled only by Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner; but when Lincoln came to Washington, Lovejoy once more became his loyal supporter. To William Lloyd Garrison's attacks on Lincoln in 1862 he made fierce rejoinder, and to Thaddeus Stevens' proposals to treat the defeated South as a conquered province, he replied in the spirit of Lincoln's magnanimous reconstruction program. To him fell the honor of proposing the bill by which slavery in all the territories of the United States was abolished forever. He heard at last the Emancipation Proclamation, and died the next year. Lincoln wrote (J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, II, p. 527): "My personal acquaintance with him ... has been one of increasing respect and esteem, ending, with his life, in no less than affection on my part. ... To the day of his death, it would scarcely wrong any other to say he was my most generous friend."

[See the Liberator, 1862-63; the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1840-58; the Philanthropist, 1836-42; Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln (1928); J.C. and Owen Lovejoy, Memoir of the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy (1838); T. C. Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest (1897); C. E. Lovejoy, The Lovejoy Genealogy (1930); Addresses on the Death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives, on Monday, March 28, I864 (1864); Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe, 35 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 752-54, 36 Congress, 1 Session, App., pp. 202-07, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 194; New York Tribune, Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), March 28, 1864.]

G. H.B.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35:

LOVEJOY, Owen, abolitionist, born in Albion, Maine, 6 January, 1811; died in Brooklyn, New York, 25 March, 1864, worked on his father's farm till he was eighteen years old, and then entered Bowdoin, but left before graduation, emigrated to Alton, Illinois, and studied theology. He was present when his brother was murdered, and was moved by that event to devote himself to the overthrow of slavery. He became pastor of a Congregational church at Princeton, Illinois, in 1838. Although anti-slavery meetings were forbidden by the laws of Illinois, he openly held them in all parts of the state, announcing at each one the time and place for the next meeting. This course subjected him to frequent fines and to violence and intimidation; but by his eloquence and persistency he won many adherents, and eventually the repressive laws were repealed. He resigned his pastoral charge in 1854 on being elected a member of the legislature. In 1856 he was sent to congress, and was continued there by re-election until his death. At the beginning of the civil war he delivered in the house of representatives a remarkable speech against slavery, in which he recounted the circumstances of his brother's death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 34-35.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.