Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 18 miles (29 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, as the former location of the state penitentiary, and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war.
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. After his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery in the United States. He was also hailed as a defender of free speech and freedom of the press.
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures, so Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the Illinois General Assembly for their respective parties.
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery in the United States is one of the most discussed aspects of his life. Lincoln frequently expressed his moral opposition to slavery in public and private. "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," he stated. "I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." However, the question of what to do about it and how to end it, given that it was so firmly embedded in the nation's constitutional framework and in the economy of much of the country, was complex and politically challenging. In addition, there was the unanswered question, which Lincoln had to deal with, of what would become of the four million slaves if liberated: how they would earn a living in a society that had almost always rejected them or looked down on their very presence.
Lyman Trumbull was an American lawyer, judge, and politician who represented the state of Illinois in the United States Senate from 1855 to 1873. As an ardent abolitionist and key political ally to Abraham Lincoln, and a leading legislator during the Civil War and Reconstruction, authoring the Confiscation Acts, which created the legal basis for the Emancipation Proclamation; Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished chattel slavery; and Civil Rights Act of 1866.
The House Divided Speech was an address given by senatorial candidate and future president of the United States Abraham Lincoln, on June 16, 1858, at what was then the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, after he had accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination as that state's US senator. The nomination of Lincoln was the final item of business at the convention, which then broke for dinner, meeting again at 8 pm. "The evening session was mainly devoted to speeches", but the only speaker was Lincoln, whose address closed the convention, save for resolutions of thanks to the city of Springfield and others. His address was immediately published in full by newspapers, as a pamphlet, and in the published proceedings of the convention. It was the launching point of his unsuccessful campaign for the senatorial seat held by Stephen A. Douglas; the campaign would climax with the Lincoln–Douglas debates. When Lincoln collected and published his debates with Douglas as part of his 1860 presidential campaign, he prefixed them with relevant prior speeches. The "House Divided" speech opens the volume.
Owen Lovejoy was an American lawyer, Congregational minister, abolitionist, and Republican congressman from Illinois. He was also a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. After his brother Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in November 1837 by pro-slavery forces, Owen, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, became a leader of abolitionists in Illinois, condemning slavery and assisting runaway slaves in escaping to freedom.
Thomas Galt was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist who organized two Presbyterian churches in Sangamon County, Illinois. He was Vice-President of the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society and a conductor of the Underground Railroad.
Winthrop Sargent Gilman was head of the banking house of Gilman, Son & Co. in New York City. Born and raised in Ohio, he had parents and ancestors from New England. Part of the family had already established the banking business in New York. Gilman developed as a businessman in the northwest region with wide interests.
John Marshall Krum (1810–1883) was a lawyer, jurist, and mayor. He was the 11th mayor of St. Louis, Missouri and the first mayor of Alton, Illinois. In 1860, he was the chairman of the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention held in Charleston, South Carolina.
The St. Louis Observer was an abolitionist newspaper established by Elijah Lovejoy, a New England Congregationalist minister, in St. Louis, Missouri. After the newspaper's printing press was destroyed for a third time by a pro-slavery mob, the newspaper was re-located to Alton, Illinois, and renamed the Alton Observer.
The Alton Observer (1837) was an abolitionist newspaper established in Alton, Illinois, by the journalist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy after he was forced to flee St. Louis, Missouri. Lovejoy left St. Louis, where he edited the St. Louis Observer, after his printing press was destroyed for the third time.
Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address was delivered to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838, titled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions". In his speech, a 28-year-old Lincoln warned that mobs or people who disrespected U.S. laws and courts could destroy the United States. He went on to say the Constitution and rule of law in the United States are "the political religion of our nation."
The lynching of Francis McIntosh was the killing of a free Black man, a boatman, by a white mob after he was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 28, 1836. He had fatally stabbed one policeman and injured a second.
Usher Ferguson Linder served as Illinois Attorney General from 1837 until 1839. He was also a private-sector attorney in practice during the early statehood years of Illinois. In several of his cases, he practiced in affiliation with the Springfield, Illinois firm of Lincoln and Herndon and with its circuit partner, Abraham Lincoln.
John Glanville Gill was an American Unitarian minister, scholar in history, and civil rights activist. While working on research for his dissertation about Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an editor and abolitionist, he lived and worked in Alton, Illinois in the mid-1940s. There he worked with other ministers to try to integrate public schools, raise awareness about racial discrimination, and end segregation practices.
Benjamin Godfrey was an American merchant and philanthropist from Massachusetts who is known for his work in the Illinois region. Running away to Ireland at a young age, Godfrey worked on ships in his early life, eventually commanding his own. This vessel was wrecked off the coast of Mexico, but Godfrey found wealth in a trading house in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. However, he was robbed and returned to the U.S. penniless.
Thomas Dimmock (1830-1909) was an American journalist, editorial writer, book reviewer, critic and lecturer. He was responsible for restoring the Alton, Illinois, grave of free-press martyr Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who was shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob in 1837.
Joseph Cammett Lovejoy (1805–1871) was a clergyman, activist, and author. He was an abolitionist, and was also involved in the debate over liquor laws. His siblings included Elijah Parish Lovejoy and Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864). He wrote Memoir of Charles T. Torrey about Charles T. Torrey. who died in a Maryland penitentiary after being sentenced for aiding African Americans trying to escape slavery on the Underground Railroad and co-wrote with his brother Owen the memoir of their murdered brother Elijah.
John R. Anderson, also known as J. Richard Anderson, was an American minister from St. Louis, Missouri, who fought against slavery and for education for African Americans. As a boy, he was an indentured servant, who attained his freedom at the age of 12. Anderson worked as a typesetter for the Missouri Republican and for Elijah Parish Lovejoy's anti-slavery newspaper, the Alton Observer. He founded the Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn, Illinois and then returned to St. Louis where he was a co-founder and the second pastor of the Central Baptist Church. He served the church until his death in 1863.
