Image: Northern Illinois University Libraries
Owen Lovejoy (January 6, 1811 – March 25, 1864) was a Congregationalist minister and abolitionist who won election to the United States Congress in 1856. In an 1859 speech to the House of Representatives, he declared his opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, a federal law that required all Americans to assist in the capture of escaped bondsmen, in the following terms:
“Proclaim it upon the house-tops! Write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest! Make it blaze from the sun at high noon and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slave catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I bid you defiance in the name of my God.”
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