On November 7, 1837, the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist editor of The Observer, died in Alton, Illinois.
They say I was the War's first casualty:
shot, not once, but five times by a mob
engorged, enraged by blood of slavery.
Three times they came with pistols, torches, robbed
me, hauled my press to the Mississippi, threw
it in. I bought another, vowed to spread
the rank stench of slavery until they grew
sick of sin and purged their souls. The thread
of the Union unravels with every lash
of the whip, every wail on the auction block.
The North is agitated at my death; men gnash
their teeth and claim the time has passed for talk.
They know the truth: The tree of justice will never bud
until this country's sins are washed in blood.