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Page 22
Men are continually asking each other, Had Lovejoy a right to resist?
Sir, I protest against the question instead of answering it. Lovejoy did
not resist, in the sense they mean. He did not throw himself back on the
natural right of self-defence. He did not cry anarchy, and let slip the
dogs of civil war, careless of the horrors which would follow. Sir, as
I understand this affair, it was not an individual protecting his
property; it was not one body of armed men resisting another, and making
the streets of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It did
not bring back the scenes in some old Italian cities, where family met
family, and faction met faction, and mutually trampled the laws under
foot. No! the men in that house were regularly enrolled, under the
sanction of the Mayor. There being no militia in Alton, about seventy
men were enrolled with the approbation of the Mayor. These relieved each
other every other night. About thirty men were in arms on the night
of the sixth, when the press was landed. The next evening, it was not
thought necessary to summon more than half that number; among these was
Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, sir, the police of the city
resisting rioters--civil government breasting itself to the shock of
lawless men.
Here is no question about the right of self-defence. It is in fact
simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?
Some persons seem to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton from the
commencement of these disputes. Not at all. "No one of us," says an
eyewitness and a comrade of Lovejoy, "has taken up arms during these
disturbances but at the command of the Mayor." Anarchy did not settle
down on that devoted city till Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the
law, represented in his person, sustained itself against its foes.
When he fell, civil authority was trampled under foot. He had "planted
himself on his constitutional rights,"--appealed to the laws,--claimed
the protection of the civil authority,--taken refuge under "the broad
shield of the Constitution. When through that he was pierced and fell,
he fell but one sufferer in a common catastrophe." He took refuge under
the banner of liberty--amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious
stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions, around which cluster
so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the martyr's blood.
It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or his comrades
fired first. This is denied by those who have the best means of knowing.
Guns were first fired by the mob. After being twice fired on, those
within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the
fire. But suppose they did fire first. They had a right so to do;
not only the right which every citizen has to defend himself, but the
further right which every civil officer has to resist violence. Even
if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it would not lessen his claim to our
sympathy, or destroy his title to be considered a martyr in defence of a
free press. The question now is, Did he act within the constitution and
the laws? The men who fell in State Street, on the 5th of March, 1770,
did more than Lovejoy is charged with. They were the first assailants
upon some slight quarrel, they pelted the troops with every missile
within reach. Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock and
Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the
cause of American liberty? If, sir, I had adopted what are called Peace
principles, I might lament the circumstances of this case. But all you
who believe as I do, in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the
laws, join with me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who
assemble year after year on the 4th of July to fight over the battles of
the Revolution, and yet "damn with faint praise" or load with obloquy,
the memory of this man who shed his blood in defence of life, liberty,
property, and the freedom of the press!
Throughout that terrible night I find nothing to regret but this, that,
within the limits of our country, civil authority should have been so
prostrated as to oblige a citizen to arm in his own defence, and to arm
in vain. The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent--he
"died as the fool dieth." And a reverend clergyman of the city tells
us that no citizen has a right to publish opinions disagreeable to the
community! If any mob follows such publication, on him rests its guilt.
He must wait, forsooth, till the people come up to it and agree with
him! This libel on liberty goes on to say that the want of right to
speak as we think is an evil inseparable from republican institutions!
If this be so, what are they worth? Welcome the despotism of the Sultan,
where one knows what he may publish and what he may not, rather than the
tyranny of this many-headed monster, the mob, where we know not what we
may do or say, till some fellow-citizen has tried it, and paid for the
lesson with his life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the
abuses of the press, not the law, but the dread of a mob. By so doing,
it deprives not only the individual and the minority of their rights,
but the majority also, since the expression of their opinion may
sometime provoke disturbances from the minority. A few men may make a
mob as well as many. The majority then, have no right, as Christian men,
to utter their sentiments, if by any possibility it may lead to a mob!
Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!
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