FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36  
37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   >>   >|  
on. Subsequently, at the instance of Mr. Stevens himself, the second Article of the Resolution was struck out by 72 yeas to 26 nays. The proceedings in both Houses of Congress upon these propositions to engraft upon the National Constitution a provision guaranteeing Freedom to all men upon our soil, were now interrupted by the death of one who would almost have been willing to die twice over, if, by doing so, he could have hastened their adoption. Owen Lovejoy, the life-long apostle of Abolitionism, the fervid gospeller of Emancipation, was dead; and it seemed almost the irony of Fate that, at such a time, when Emancipation most needed all its friends to make it secure, its doughtiest champion should fall. But perhaps the eloquent tributes paid to his memory, in the Halls of Congress, helped the Cause no less. They at least brought back to the public mind the old and abhorrent tyrannies of the Southern Slave power; how it had sought not not only to destroy freedom of Action, but freedom of Speech, and hesitated not to destroy human Life with these; reminded the Loyal People of the Union of much that was hateful, from which they had escaped; and strengthened the purpose of Patriots to fix in the chief corner-stone of the Constitution, imperishable muniments of human Liberty. Lovejoy's brother had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, while vindicating freedom of Speech and of the Press; and the blood of that martyr truly became "the seed of the Church." Arnold--recalling a speech of Owen Lovejoy's at Chicago, and a passage in it, descriptive of the martyrdom,--said to the House, on this sad occasion: "I remember that, after describing the scene of that death, in words--which stirred every heart, he said he went a pilgrim to his brother's grave, and, kneeling upon the sod beneath which sleeps that brother, he swore, by the everlasting God, eternal hostility to African Slavery." And, continued Arnold, "Well and nobly has he kept that oath." Washburne, too, reminded the House of the memorable episode in that very Hall when, (April 5, 1860), the adherents of Slavery crowding around Lovejoy with fierce imprecations and threats, seeking then and there to prevent Free Speech, "he displayed that undaunted courage and matchless bearing which extorted the admiration of even his most deadly foes." "His"--continued the same speaker--"was the eloquence of Mirabeau, which in the Tiers Etat and in the National Assembly made t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36  
37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Lovejoy

 

freedom

 
brother
 
Speech
 
Slavery
 

continued

 

Emancipation

 

Arnold

 

reminded

 

destroy


Constitution

 

National

 

Congress

 

describing

 

remember

 
occasion
 

sleeps

 
beneath
 

everlasting

 
kneeling

instance

 

pilgrim

 
stirred
 

descriptive

 

Illinois

 

vindicating

 

murdered

 

imperishable

 

muniments

 

Liberty


martyr

 
Chicago
 

speech

 

passage

 

eternal

 

martyrdom

 

recalling

 

Stevens

 

Church

 

bearing


matchless

 

extorted

 

admiration

 

courage

 

undaunted

 

prevent

 
displayed
 
deadly
 
Assembly
 

Mirabeau