On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the site of his anti-slavery newspaper The Saint Louis Observer. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition. Mobs had destroyed Lovejoys presses on a number of occasions, but when a new press arrived in November 1837, the violence escalated. No sooner was the new press offloaded from the steamboat Missouri Fulton than a drunken mob formed and tried to set fire to the warehouse where it was stored. When Lovejoy ran out to push away a would-be-arsonist, he was shot. Throughout the North and West, membership in anti-slavery societies increased sharply following Lovejoys death. Yet officials in Illinois, with one exception, made little comment. Twenty-eight year old State Representative Abraham Lincoln stated publicly: Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own, and his childrens liberty…Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother…in short let it become the political religion of the nation… (Library of Congress)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 23:54:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015