Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Well, listen, on the left, they've been doing this for a long time, it sounds like.

I mean, think about slavery, you know, the period that I'm familiar with and abolitionism, like the lynching and murder of Elijah Lovejoy, the abolitionist printer in Illinois, right? I mean, the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks, right? A congressman.

That's a horrible story.

Right.

And, you know, it's really his 40s where this story really accelerates.

Yeah, I think the turning point, too, is the death of Elijah Lovejoy.

Like, that was major in abolitionist circles.

Elijah Lovejoy is an abolitionist.

He's a printer.

He has his own abolitionist newspaper.

He says here before God in the presence of these witnesses from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.

I mean, no small thing, no small thing at all.

Mob law reigned in Boston, Utica, and New York City, which witnessed the greatest destruction of property in the endeavor to put down the growing public desire to abolish slavery.

Elijah Lovejoy's innocent blood spoke in trumpet tones to the reformer from his quiet grave by the rolling river.

William Lloyd Garrison's outraged manhood brought the blush of shame to the cheek of the honest American who loved his country's honor better than any individual institution.

The memory of Charles Sumner's brutal beating by Preston Brooks stamped the mad passions of the hour indelibly upon history's page.

Mob law reigned in Boston, Utica, and New York City, which witnessed the greatest destruction of property in the endeavor to put down the growing public desire to abolish slavery.

Elijah Lovejoy's innocent blood spoke in trumpet tones to the reformer from his quiet grave by the rolling river.

William Lloyd Garrison's outraged manhood brought the blush of shame to the cheek of the honest American who loved his country's honor better than any individual institution.

The memory of Charles Sumner's brutal beating by Preston Brooks stamped the mad passions of the hour indelibly upon history's page.

Mob law reigned in Boston, Utica, and New York City, which witnessed the greatest destruction of property in the endeavor to put down the growing public desire to abolish slavery.

Elijah Lovejoy's innocent blood spoke in trumpet tones to the reformer from his quiet grave by the rolling river.

William Lloyd Garrison's outraged manhood brought the blush of shame to the cheek of the honest American who loved his country's honor better than any individual institution.

The memory of Charles Sumner's brutal beating by Preston Brooks stamped the mad passions of the hour indelibly upon history's page.

Mob law reigned in Boston, Utica, and New York City, which witnessed the greatest destruction of property in the endeavor to put down the growing public desire to abolish slavery.

Elijah Lovejoy's innocent blood spoke in trumpet tones to the reformer from his quiet grave by the rolling river.

William Lloyd Garrison's outraged manhood brought the blush of shame to the cheek of the honest American who loved his country's honor better than any individual institution.

The memory of Charles Sumner's brutal beating by Preston Brooks stamped the mad passions of the hour indelibly upon history's page.

The end of Classification of Fools by Desiderus Erasmus.

Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist, journalist, killed at Alton, Illinois, 1837.

From History of the Rise and Progress of the Alton Riots, Cumulating in the Death of Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, November 7, 1837, by Henry Tanner, published in 1878.

This is a LibriVox recording.

And as the men passed by that vacant lot, it seemed as if a hundred bullets were shot at them from the mob congregated at the other and higher end of the lot, and being thus elevated, the balls sung harmless by to the river.

The escaped congregated in a hardware store on Second Street, a little removed from the scene of action, and after a while each went to their several homes, and the work of destruction was completed on the press and on the fortunes of the city for all future time.

End of Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist journalist, killed at Alton, Illinois, 1837.

From History of the Rise and Progress of the Alton Riots Cumulating in the Death of Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, November seventh, eighteen thirty-seven, by Henry Tanner.