The Portland daily press., 1864-04-02
E u l. O G Y
PRONOUNCED UPON
HON. OWEN LOVEJOY,
IN THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATTTEs.
BY HIS COLLEAGUE
HON. J.. b. wASHBURN, of Illinois.


death of the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, Representa-
tive in the Congress of the United States from
the State of Illinois. Mr.. Loyejoy expired in
the city of Brooklyn, N. Y, on Friday evening
last, March 25, 1854 A man of an iron consti-
tuition, he had always enjoyed the most robust
health until short time before the expiration
of the last Congress. He was then stricken
down by sudden and severe illness which de-
tanned him at the capital for some time after the
Congress had expired.
Returning to his home, he partially regained
his health during the last summer and autumn.
Taking his seat in Congress at the commence
ment of the session, in the hopeful and buoyant
feelings of his nature, he tlattered himself with
The idea of health recovered and energies re-
gained, but there was something in his altered
look, WHICH, even to the unpractced eye, told
of disease and death; creating in the minds of
friends the gravest apprehensions. During thehol-
ldays, in response to the pressing invitations of
friends he visited Portland, Maine, and delivered
public address on the great events which arc
now challenging the attention Of the country
and Of the wsrld. 1t was his last effort at public
speaking, and it was worthy of his name and
his fame in his pamiest days, and the news of
his death will reach that delighted auditory be-
fore the accents of his eloquent utterances will
have died away.
Coming back to Washington after the recess
of Congress, he soon had return of the disease
which had prostrated him nearly year before
After several weeks confinement to his room
and to his bed, he had so far recovered as TO be-
lleye himself able to partially resume his duties
in this House. He attended our sittings short
time for several days, but his eye had lost its
brightness, and the unwonted and ghastly pal
lor OF his cheek told, alas but too plainly that
Death had already marked him as its early vic
tim. Stimulated by the stirring events of the
passing hour, the important legislation of Con-
gress, and the claims of a constituency whose
interests he had never neglected or betrayed,
and whose convictions he had never misreprc-
sented, the effort he made to resume his duty
among us was too much for him. A partial re-
lapse was the consequence, and then it was de-
termined that he should for time, leave the ex-
citement of the Capitol and visit more genial
climate in the hopet 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 have stated.
Though dying away from his own beloved
home, he was yet surrounded not only by kind
and sympathizing friends, but by members of
his own family, and the pangs of his parting
life were assuaged by the affections and the care
of devoted wife.
Mr.. Loyejoy was born at Albion, in the State
OF Maine, on the 7th day of January, 1911, and
was consequently, at the time of his death,
little over ifty-three years of age The SON ofa
Congregational clergyman in country town,
his early life was devoted to labor upon farm
and to the acquisition of such an education as
he could obtain at "A New England ''district
school,,
He entered Bowdon College at the age of
tweaty-one years, and remained there for three
years, and then entered. upon the pursuit of
theological studies He removed to Illinois in
1886. In 1889 he was ordained as pastor of the
Congregational Church at Princeton, in that
State, and remained its pastor nearly seventeen
years. 1t was his only charge, and he there
me- fa n st tatp fha
Everlasting eyangel of the fatherhood of God,
the sonship of Christ. and the brotherhood of
man. His first entrance into political life was
in 1854, when he was elected Il member of the
lower house of the Illinois Legislative Assembly.
In 1859 he was first elected to Congress for the
Third Congressional District Of Illinois, and be
was twice reelected from that district.
In the re-distrieting Of the State in 1861, he
again elected to the present Congress from
the fifth district, having thus been elected four
times, and having served for a longer period,
with four exceptions, than any man ever elected
from that State This great fact speaks, in un-
mistakabe language, of the hold which he had
upon the confidence and affections of his constit-
nents.
Mr.. Speaker, Owen Loyejoy was no common
man. In saying that in his death great man
has fallen.I speak it in no common or hackneyed
sense for he was great. He was great in the
leading idea of his lie great in his convictions;
great in the elements of his character, great in
MS great Ill HIS tuuIdSts anu great III
his abiding and everything faith in the ultimate
triumph of the eternal principles of right, JUS
tice, and humanity
No man who has succeeded in stamping his
IDEAS and his principles, as he has with the iu-
press Of Indelibility, upon the minds and hearts
of men, could be an ordinary man. Early i'm
pressed with convictions in regard TO the sub
leet of American slavery he followed those con-
yictlons with unswerying fidelity, in the face of
danger, obloquy, aud repl oaeh. His natural
abhorrence of slavery quickened by the
tragic fate of beloved brother, who fell a VIC
tim TO his opposition to that institution, and
who illustrated bis principles by his blood shed
by lawless mob. In the advancement of this
great idea of his life Mr.. Loyejoy toiled with an
earnestness and zeal which were ''without yaria.
bleness or shadow of turning and in the pur-
suit of his great object it could truly have been
said of him
mo dangers daunted and no labors tired"
The heated denunciation of partizans, the ridi-
eue and clam2r of the vulgar, and the threats
of the cowardly AM the base, failed alike TO turn
him from that great purpose of his life, which
like the
"Pontc Sea knew retiring ebb.'
and which purpose he pursued with unfalterne
devotion to the last moment of his earthly ex-
istence. If he did not live to see the end OF that
stupendous struggle which was to establish th'
great problem which he had spent his life in
working out, like Moses he saw the promised
land, bright and beautiful, as the last object up
on which his expiring eyes fell
cannot, Mr.. Speaker, dwell at length upon
the striking incidents of the life of my late col
league, nor shall the partiality of long and un
interrupted personal and pol tical friendship lea,
m TO frasDlSs too LONG uD on the time of tn