He could not give up truth for safety and life----no not even for wife and child. Elijah P. Lovejoy was a native of Maine, a graduate of Waterville College. He settled in St. Louis, Missouri, and attained a high reputation as editor of a newspaper there. He became a clergyman, and at length an abolitionist. After the burning of a black man M'Intosh, at St. Louis, he spoke out in his newspaper about the atrocity of the deed, and exposed the iniquities of the district judge, and of the mob which overawed Marion College and brought two of the students before a Lynch Court.

1860 photograph of Colonel Alton Easton a year before being appointed Inspector General of Missouri's militia. Born in 1807, first white American born in Louisana Territory had the priviledge of having his name sake tarnish with assassination. In the end it was Alton who was in charge on judgement day. Alton Easton was in charge of 55,000 troops of the Missouri Militia. His brother supplied Sherman's army 100,000 troops and was Chief Quartermaster at one time of both Grant and Sherman's army.

For this, his press and types were destroyed by being thrown in the Mississippi River. Lovejoy then established himself on the opposite side of the river, in the free state of Illinois. But the town of Alton, in which he set up his press, was as dangerous to him as if it had stood in a slave State like Missouri.

Two more times his property was annihilated in the same manner, without the slightest alteration of conduct on his part. His paper continued to be the steady, dispassionate advocate of freedom and reprover of violence. In October of 1837, he wrote to a friend in New York, to unburden his full head and heart. After having described the fury and murderous spirit of his assailants, and the manner in which for weeks his footsteps had been tracked by assassins, he proceeded---

"And now, my dear brother, if you ask what are my own feelings at a time like this, I answer, perfectly calm, perfectly resigned. Though in the midst of danger, I have a constant sense of security that keeps me alike from fear and anxiety. I read the Bible, and especially the Psalms, with a delight, a refreshing of soul I never knew before. God has said, 'As thy day is, so shall thy strength be;' and he has made his promise good. Pray for me.---We have a few excellent brethren here, in Alton. they are sincerely desirous to know their duty at this crisis, and to do it: but as yet they cannot see that duty requires them to maintain their cause here, at all hazards. Of this be assured, the case of truth still lives in Illinois, and will not defenders. Whether our paper starts again will depend on our friends, East, West, North, and South. So far as it depends on me, it shall go forward. By the blessing of God, I will not abandon the enterprise so long as I live, and until success has crowned it. And there are those in Illinois who join me in this resolution. And if I am to die, it cannot be in a better cause. Your's till death or victory, E.P. Lovejoy."

Death and victory were now both at hand. Two or three weeks after this letter was written, he was called before a large meeting of townsmen on a singular affair. A committee of gentlemen was appointed to mediate between the editor of the Alton Observer and the mob. They drew up a "compromise Resolutions," so called, which yielded everything to the mob, and required of Lovejoy to leave the town of Alton. One member of the committee, Mr. Gilman, remonstrated: but he was overborne. Lovejoy was summoned, and required to leave the place. He listened till the chairman had said what he had to say, and then stepped forward to the bar. There with grisly Murder peeping over his shoulder, he bore his last verbal testimony in the following unpremeditated address, reported by a person present:

"I feel, Mr. Chairman, that this is the most solemn moment of my life. I feel, I trust in some measure, the responsibilities which at this hour I sustain to these my fellow-citizens, to the church of which I am a minister, to my country to God. And let me beg of you, before I proceed further, to construe nothing I shall say as being disrespectful to this assembly; I have no such feeling; far from it. And if I do not act or speak according to their wishes at all times, it is because I cannot conscientiously do it. It is proper I should state the whole matter, as I understand it, before this audience. I do not stand here to argue the question as presented by the honorable gentleman (Hon. Cyrus Edwards--Whig Candidate for Congress) for whose character I entertain great respect, though I have not the pleasure of his personal acquaintance: my only wonder is how that gentleman could have brought himself to submit such a Report.

"Mr. Chairman, I do not admit that it is the business of this assembly to decide whether I shall or shall not publish a newspaper in this city. The gentlemen have, as the lawyers say, made a wrong issue. I have the right to do it. I know that I have the right to speak and publish my sentiments, subject only to the laws of the land for the abuse of that right. This right was given me by my Maker, and is solemnly guaranteed to me by the constitution of these United States, and of this State. What I wish to know of you is whether you will protect me in the exercise of this right, or whether, as heretofore, I am to be subjected to personal indignity and outrage. These resolutions, and the measures proposed by them, are spoken of as a compromise; a compromise between two parties.

Mr. Chairman, this is not so; there is but one party here. It is simply a question whether the law shall be enforced, or whether the mob shall be allowed, as they now do, to continue to trample it under their feet, by violating with impunity the rights of an innocent individual. Mr. Chairman, what have I to compromise? If freely to forgive those who have so greatly injured me; if to pray for their temporal and eternal happiness; if still to wish for the prosperity of your city and State, notwithstanding all the indignities I have suffered in it; if this be the compromise intended, then do I willingly make it. My rights have been shamefully and wickedly outraged; this I know and feel, and can never forget; but I can and do freely forgive those who have done it.

"But if by compromise is meant, that I should cease doing that which duty requires me, I cannot make it. And the reason is, that I fear God more than I fear man...

"When assailed by a mob in St. Louis, I came here as to the home of freedom and of the laws. the mob have pursued me here, and why should I retreat again? Where can I be safe, if not here? Have I not a right to claim the protection of the laws? and what more can I have in any other place? Sir, the very act of retreating will embolden the mob to follow me wherever I go. No, sir, there is no way to escape the mob but to abandon the path of duty; and that, God helping me, I never will do.

"It has been said here that my hand is against every man, and every man's hand against me. The last part of the declaration is too painfully true. I do indeed find almost every hand lifted against me, but against whom in this place has my hand been raised? I appeal to every individual present; whom of you have I injured? whose character have I traduced? whose family have I molested? whose business have I meddled with? If any, let him rise here and testify against me. --- No one answers.

"...You may hang me up as the mob hung up the individuals at Vicksburg; you may burn me at the stake as they did M'Intosh at St. Louis; you may tar and feather me, or throw me into the Mississippi, as you have often threatened to do. I, and I alone, can disgrace myself; and the deepest of all disgrace would be, at a time like this, to deny my Master by forsaking his cause.--He died for me, and I were most unworthy to bear his name, should I refuse, if need be, to die for him.

Again, you have been told that I have a family who are dependent upon me, and this has been given as a reason why I should be driven off as gently as possible. It is true, Mr. Chairman, I am a husband and a father, and this it is that adds the bitterest ingredient to the cup of sorrow I am called to drink. I am made to feel the wisdom of the Apostle's advice, 'It is better not to marry.' I know, sir, that in this contest, I stake not my life only, but that of others also. I do not expect my wife will ever recover from the shock received at the awful scenes through which she was called to pass at St. Charles. And how was it the other night on my return to my home? I found her driven the garret through fear of the mob, who were prowling round my house. And scarcely had I entered the house ere my windows were broken by the brickbats of the mob, and as he so alarmed as rendered it impossible for her to sleep or rest that night. I am hunted as a partridge on the mountain. I am pursued as a felon through your streets; to the guardian power of the law I look in vain for that protection against violence, which even the vilest criminal may enjoy. Yet think not that I am unhappy.---Think not that I regret the choice I have made; while all around me is violence and tumult, all is peace within. An approving conscience and the rewarding smile of God are a full recompense for all that I forego, and all that I endure. Yes sir, I enjoy a peace which nothing can destroy. I sleep sweetly and undisturbed, except when awakened by the brickbats of the mob.

"No sir, I am not unhappy; I have counted the cost, and stand prepared freely to offer up my all in the service in God. Yes sir, I am fully aware of all the sacrifice I make, in here pledging myself to continue the contest until the last. (Forgive these tears. I had not intended to shed them, and they flow not for myself, but for others.) --But I am commanded to forsake father and mother, and wife and children for Jesus' sake; and as his professed disciple I stand pledge to do it. the time for fulfilling this pledge in my case, it seems to me has come. Sir, I dare not flee away from Alton; should I attempt it, I should feel that the angel of the Lord with his flaming sword was pursuing me wherever I went. It is because I fear God, that I am not afraid of all who oppose me in this city. No sir, the contest has commenced here, and here it must be finished. Before God and you all, I here pledge myself to continue it, if need be, till death; and if I fall, my grave shall be made in Alton."

A few days after on November 7, 1837 Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, Illinois. His office was surrounded by an armed mob, and defending from within by a guard furnished by the Mayor of Alton. When the attack was supposed to be over, Lovejoy looked out to reconnoiter. He received five bullets in his body, was able to reach a room on the first floor, declared himself fatally wounded, and fell on his face dead. His age was thirty-two.

Upon the news all over the United States it was heard "The spirit of Lovejoy is rising among the farmers, and Lovejoy will yet conquer the State...I have just hear of the murder of Lovejoy at Alton. He was shot by an armed mob. Now he will indeed conquer the State, and, I trust the nation. I meant to have given you my budget of gossip; but my heart is very full, and I cannot write more now."

E. P. Lovejoy's brother Owen Lovejoy carried on his crusade and became Abraham Lincoln's closest friend in Congress. It was Owen Lovejoy who abolished slavery First in these United States in 1862 as a Congressman in the District of Washington D.C. Abraham Lincoln purchased the headstone when Owen Lovejoy passed away in 1864. Lincoln said "Owen was my best friend in Congress." As a young man Abraham Lincoln voted against passing a bill to stop abolitionists from writing against slavery. This bill was aimed at Elijah P. Lovejoy and Lincoln would have no part of it way back in the 1830s.