History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 44

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776

USA > Illinois > Bureau County > History of Bureau County, Illinois > Part 44

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Owen Lovejoy was born January 6, 1811, 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, Ill. Here he spent a year studying theology. Upon the death of his brother, he removed

temporarily to Jacksonville. He was ordained a minister of God, and in 1838 came to Princeton.

For seventeen years he was the minister of the Princeton Congregational Church, and he preached liberty all that time. He be- friended 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 Railroad"-the slaves' high- way through Illinois to Canada. Princeton was a " division headquarters " on this rail- road. At one time he was indicted by the grand jury of Bureau County for "feeding and clothing a negro woman." He was the " 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 Conven- tion, and was defeated by Simon Kinney by twenty votes. This vote was some evi- dence 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 elec- tion 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.

At the May term, 1843, Mr. Lovejoy was

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indicted by the grand jury of Burean County for keeping the said " Agnes " in his dwell- ing-house, feeding, clothing and comforting her the said "Agnes," he the said Owen Love- joy, then and there the said "Agnes," so be- ing a slave, and owing service as aforesaid, unlawfully and wilfully did harbor and se- crete," etc.

The other count was to the same tenor, ex- ellel. The prosecution was urged by the cept it was for another slave, "Nancy." The indictment is signed by W. H. Purple, State's Attorney pro tem. At the October term, 1843, 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 " 'Fridley, we want you to be sure and con- vict this preacher and send him to prison.' sets out any offense within the true intent of the statute; third, that the 149th section of " 'Prison ! Lovejoy to prison !'" replied Fridley; " 'your prosecution will be a d-d sight more likely to send him to Congress." 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 mo- tion was overruled; the case called for trial, a jury impaneled, and on the 7th day of October a verdict of not guilty returned.

Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, in addressing the meeting of the Bar Association at Springfield, January 7, 1881, in referring to Mr. Lovejoy, said:

"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 Aboli- tionist; a cotemporary with Dr. Charles V. Dyer, the Lovejoys, Ichabod Codding, East- man, Freer, Farnsworth and other Aboli- tionists 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 par- enemies of Lovejoy with an energy and vin- dictiveness 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 Attor- ney :

"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 de- nounced 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 import- ant legal and constitutional questions dis- cussed. Judge Purple for logical ability and wide culture, for a clear, concise style, con- densiug the strong points of a case into the fewest words had rarely an equal. Fridley for quaint humor, for drollery and apt illus- tration, expressed in familiar, plain, collo- quial, sometimes vulgar language, but with a clear, strong, common sense, was a very effective prosecutor. Collins was indefatig-

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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.

" Lovejoy suggested to me a Roundhead of the days of Cromwell. He was thorough- ly in earnest, almost, if not quite, fanatical in his politics. His courage was unflinch- ing, and he would have died for his princi- ples. 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 argu- ment, and Mr. Collins' closing speech ex- tended through two days. They extorted a verdict from a hostile jury. It is very doubtful, however, if they could have suc- ceeded, 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 turning- point 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.'

" ' And,' said he, ' if this is the glory of England, is it not equally true of Illinois,

her soil consecrated to freedom by the ordi- nance of 1787 and her own Constitution?'

"Mr. Collins, in summing up, read the great and eloquent opinion of Lord Mans- field 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 Con- gress, 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-

*A slight error bere of Mr. Arnold's statement is that this was the testimony of the owner of the slave, that was the turn- ing 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 beswore to a confession of Lovejoy's, in which he stated that Lovejoy told him the girl had escaped from her owner, who was taking ber through Illi- nois to Missouri, and the Court ruled if part of the confession was taken it must all stand, and the point therefore arose in the ease in this way, and not upon the owner's evidence or confes- sion.

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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 DE- FIANCE IN THE NAME OF GOD! '

" I heard Lovejoy declare that, after the death of his brother, he went to the grave- yard 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 meeting- houses 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 suffi- cient excuse for his violence, and the name of Lovejoy the Martyr, like the name of Rob Roy or Douglas in history, became a name to conjure with; and he scattered seed broad- cast, 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 crnel mob, because he would not surrender the freedom of the press, be 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 sympa- thizers,' said he, ' have murdered my broth- er, and if another victim is needed, I am ready.'

" His aged and widowed mother was pres- eut in the church. Pausing and turning to her, he said:

" ' Mother, you have given one son, your eldest, to liberty; are you willing to give another ?'

" And the heroic mother replied:

"' Yes, my son. You cannot die in a better cause.'

" He lived to see slavery die amid the flames of war which itself had kindled.

"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. Wyck- liffe's body, you will remember, was burned and his ashes thrown into the Avon, and the poet-prophet says of the incident:

'The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to the sea,

And Wycklyffe's dust shall spread abroad, Wide as the waters be.'

"The death of Elijah P. Lovejoy, on the banks of the Mississippi, his lonely grave on the bluffs of Alton, were among the influ- ences, 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 Un- ion. It was the moment of the commence- ment of those turbulent times that climaxed

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in blood and war. It was Lovejoy's intro- duction to the civilized world as a slavery agitator. The scene in the halls of Congress on this occasion is probably without a paral- lel in history. He had talked but a few min- utes, when Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, rose up 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 " black- hearted nigger thief and scoundrel," and from several were hurled all manner of epi- thets, as "perjurer," "nigger-thief," etc., etc. Confusion reigned supreme. The tem- porary 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 con- suming, relentless hatred of an intense com- bative 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 Presby- terian 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, perjnred 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 ar- gued that the Constitution did not counte- nance slave-holding. Soon after he had fin- ished this part of the address and was again pouring the vials of his wrath upon slave- holders the confusion and interruptions were again on 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 as brave as other men, although I do not think you show it by this abusive langnage, because brave men are always calm and self-possessed. God feels no anger, for he knows no fear." * * *

"Refuse or neglect this," [to abolish slav. ery ]; "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 com- ing to Bureau County. At that time but few

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people in Illinois had thought or concerned themselves about either slaves or slave- owners. They opposed it coming among them, and this was all. They cared but lit- tle what other States might do. They knew that the leading best men in the South, from Washington to Clay, were bemoaning the in- fliction of slavery upon their portion of the country; the Southern men they knew had advocated and taken steps looking to event- ual 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 informa- tion 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

object of their wrath that they were calling him an Abolitionist, or were throwing clods.

The records of the Circuit Court of Bureau County, in early forties, are perpetual wit- ness 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 fugi- tives-"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. Love- joy and Ichabod Codding were starting from Mr. Lovejoy's residence to attend an anti- slavery meeting at Lamoille, this county, when they were met by a well-dressed mu- latto, 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 (Roth) a $10 Ken- tucky 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 war- rant 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

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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 Angust, 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 As- sociate. 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 Cir- cuit Court and dismissed by the people. On the 11th of the same month the same Davis sned ont a writ against Lovejoy and others for riot. All were bound over to the Octo- ber 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 Prince- ton. 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 Missourians 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 ont 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 mo- ment the negro was seized, lifted over the railing, the rope ent, 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 Love- joy, crying ont, "Run, John!" Mr. Love- joy's servant was ou 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 admit- ting 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 ter- rific 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 the 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 consider- able distance away, running for life appar- ently. 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

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neighbors acting as a decoy, who had com- pletely deceived them. Any of the old set- tlers 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 repu- tation, and was not a little surprised when he came into the county to learn that for seven- teen years Mr. Lovejoy had been the dis- tinguished and idolized pastor of the Prince- ton 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 pic- ture 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.

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History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 44

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company Number of Pages: 776

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776