I have concluded, after consultation with my friends and earnestly seeking counsel of God, to remain at Alton, and here to insist on protection in the exercise of my rights.
— Elijah Parish Lovejoy
While I value the good opinion of my fellow citizens as highly as anyone, I may be permitted to say that I am governed by higher considerations than either the favor or the fear of man. I am impelled to the course I have taken because I fear God.
Emancipation - what is meant by it? Simply that the slaves shall cease to be held as property and shall henceforth be held and treated as human beings. Simply, that we should take our feet from off their necks.
Truth is eternal, unchanging, though circumstances may and do operate to give a different colour to it, in our view, at different times. And truth will prevail, and those who do not yield to it must be destroyed by it.
As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.
I have sworn eternal opposition to slavery, and by the blessing of God, I will never go back.
Is he not a God that showeth mercy and keepeth covenant? Of all sins, it seems to me that the sin of unbelief is the most dishonouring to God.
It is the easiest thing in the world to become a Christian - ten thousand times easier than it is to hold out unrepenting against the motives which God presents to the mind, to induce it to forsake its evil thoughts and turn unto Him.
It seems to me scarcely possible that one who has so long lived in sin, who has resisted so much light and has so often grieved away the Holy Spirit, as I have, should again be visited with its heavenly influences. But I hope it is so.
Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth.
I have been beset night and day at Alton. And now, if I leave here and go elsewhere, violence may overtake me in my retreat, and I have no more claim upon the protection of any other community than I have upon this.
I know that I have the right freely to speak and publish my sentiments, subject only to the laws of the land for the abuse of that right.
As the Bible inculcates upon man but one duty in respect to sin, and that is immediate repentance, abolitionists believe that all who hold slaves, or who approve the practice in others, should immediately cease to do so.
If I know my own heart, I do now feel the necessity of resigning myself into the hands of my God, to mould and guide me at His will; tho I dare not say that I am, at present, willing to do it.
If the civil authorities refuse to protect me, I must look to God, and if I die, I have determined to make my grave in Alton.
The cry of the oppressed has entered not only into my ears, but into my soul, so that while I live, I cannot hold my peace.
I am sure I ought not to be, but I have great reason to tremble lest Satan and my own wicked heart get the better of me. It is no easy matter to fight such enemies as these, but with Christ strengthening me, I know I shall come off more than a conquerer.
Nothing but a miracle of sovereign mercy could have arrested and saved me from eternal perdition. How I could have so long resisted the entreaties, the prayers, and the tears of my dear parents, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, is, to me, a wonder entirely incomprehensible.
I most earnestly advise you, again and again, love, honor, and obey your parents. Friends like them, you need not expect to find in this world.
I have appealed to the constitution and laws of my country; if they fail to protect me, I appeal to God, and with Him I cheerfully rest my cause. I can die at my post, but I cannot desert it.
If I have been guilty of no violation of law, why am I hunted up and down continually like a partridge upon the mountains? Why am I threatened with the tar barrel? Why am I waylaid every day, and from night to night, and my life in jeopardy every hour?
Emancipation, to be of any value to the slave, must be the free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its propriety.
It is not possible that one man can convert another into a piece of property, thus at once annihilating all his personal rights, without the most flagrant injustice and usurpation.
The very flag of freedom that waves over our heads is formed from material cultivated by slaves, on soil moistened with their blood drawn from them by the whip of a republican taskmaster!
If I am not safe in Alton, I shall not be safe anywhere.
I cannot surrender my principles, though the whole world besides should vote them down - I can make no compromise between truth and error, even though my life be the alternative.
The eternal God - the infinite Jehovah - has done all he could do - even to the sacrificing his own Son - to provide a way for man's happiness, and yet they reject him, hate him, and laugh him to scorn!
I was, by divine grace, enabled to bring all my sins and all my sorrows and lay them at the feet of Jesus, and to receive the blessed assurance that He had accepted me, all sinful and polluted as I was.
Fortune has, in the main, hitherto looked unfavourably upon me since I left home, but I begin to hope for better things. Still, in all my past distresses, one thought has consoled me - I have learned to appreciate a parent's love.
