Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-08-23
A Heroic Era.

Al tne opening oil the antl-slavery apoca-
lypse in 1880, the whole nation-state,
church, government, religion, education,
trade, commerce-all were held subservient
to the sovereign will and pleasure of the
slave power. Every conceivable human in
terest, every distinguished clergyman, poll
tician, oflice-seeker, as well as office-holder,
bowed reverently in that temple of Moloch
and Rimmon, humbly exclaiming: Not
my will, but thine be done" But from the
hours when the bugle blast of freedom was
sounded in Boston demanding immediate
emancipation throughout all the land, ain
the name of humanity, and according to the
laws of the living God" slavery became
alarmed. 1t had as from Siniai heights,
and with Jehovah's voice proclaimed
"Thou shalt have no other gods before
me ~ And the people had Loyalty responded
" None but thee; for thee, o thou blood be-
smeared Moloch we renounce and forsake
all other gods !" In that hour the "irre-
pressible conflict" began. Little did any of
US dream what it was to cost, or through
what red seas Of blood and what cataclysms
Of desolation and fire our enslaved millions
were at last to march triumphanty into lib
erty. But let not the young men or young
women suppose there was no heroism in our
conflict. 1t cost something in those dreary
days to be an abolitionist. Time will yet
come when that will be seen to have been
the proudest period in our national history.
An Iliad indeed, wanting only Homer to
sound its praises. Only heroic souls were
equal TO that trying hour. Many were
called, but not proved by courage patience
and perseverance to have been created and
chosen for its holy work. Garrison had
been heavily fined and imprisoned in Balti
more only for exposing in newspaper an
atrocious instance of cruelty in our coast
wise slave trade. In Boston he was mobbed,
stripped nearly naked, dragged by rope
through the streets till rescued by the au-
thorities and shut in the strongest Jail to
save his imperiled life. A worthy minis
ter in New Hampshire, engaged to give an
anti-slavery lecture, was arrested as ga
common brawler," jerked from his knees
and pulpit to trial as he was offering his
opening prayer. Churches, school houses,
orphan asylums and dwellings of colored
people in Providence, New York, Philadel-
phia and Cincinnati were mobbed, sacked,
burned down-twelve in New York, and
ole church; more than forty in Philadel-
phia and two churches; and one church
and many dwellings in Cincinnsti and
many of the colored men were severely
injured in their person, and girls and
women grossly outraged by their diabolical
assailants, so were they hated for their color
and because millions of their kindred were
slaves to democratic, republican and Chris
tian masters. Pennsylvania hall in Phila-
delphia was erected at cost of forty
thousand dollars, wholly for anti.slavery
and other philanthropic purposes During
an antislavery convention in 1885 that
gnaniOna and haantifp1 mob
bed, set on fire and burned to ashes, with all
its contents. A valuable library and much
other property were consumed in the flames
Nor did the city authorities, from mayor
and aldermen to sheriff and police, utter a
protest, still less proffer any protection or
word of sympathy to the innocent and peace
full sufferers. Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy,
native of Maine, graduate of Waterville
College, and brother of Owen Lovejoy, af-
terwards member of congress, perished, as
some of you must remember, in an attempt
to protect his press and printing office from
the fate of Pennsylvania hall. 1t was in
Alton, Illinois, north of st. Louis, on the op-
posite bank of the Mississippi, that most
heartrending and horrible instance of burn
ing slave to death over a slow fire in St.
Louis, in the year 1887, had just been made
public. The st. Louis newspapers, though
generally approving the most devilish deed,
stirred the civilized world with their ac-
count of it. Of course the editorial pen of
Lovejoy was hot with hallowed fire at the
awful recital. His office and life were soon
threatened. He appealed to the author
tiles for protection. He might as well have
looked to the murderers OF the poor slave.
His friends counseled him to flee. He an
swered Z" dare not flee away from Alton.
The crisis has come and have counted the
cost, Should | attempt to flee should feel
that the angel of the Lord was pursuing me
with flaming sword wherever | went. And
it is because | fear God that | am not afraid
of all who oppose me in this wicked city p
This was the fourth printing press he had
set up. All the others had been ruthlessly
destroyed by the same mob violence that
now assailed this. Refused all municipal
protection, he and few brave friends en-
tered the building alone. They fearlessly
faced the mob till the building was in
flames. As they came out Lovejoy received
five bullets and fell dead. Three of the
bullets were taken out of his breast. He
was but thirty-two and left young wife
and babes. When his mother read the ac-
count of his death, she said alt is well I;
| had rather he die defending his principles
than that he should have forsaken them ~
Said not truly that it cost something in
those days to be known as the friends of
the enslaved 2-Pdrker PlLsbtvy.