scenes in
some old Italian cities, where family met family, and faction met
faction, and mutually trampled the laws underfoot. 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-defense. 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 eye-witness 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 underfoot. 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 constitutions, around which cluster so many heart-stirring
memories, were blotted out in the martyr's blood.

If, Sir, I had adopted what are called peace principles, I might
lament the circumstances of this case. But all of 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 Fourth of July, to fight over
battles of the Revolution, and yet "damn with faint praise," or
load with obloquy, the memory of this man, who shed his blood in
defense of life,