Owen Lovejoy: Abolitionist in Congress (review)

188CIVIL WAR HISTORY behind the times in describing a movement (revolution) which sweeps along at breakneck speed, leaving average citizen and "authority" alike breathless and bewildered. To remedy at least partially this final but not fatal flaw, every reader, upon completing the text, should close the back cover and take a long, thoughtful, eyeball-to-eyeball look at the tough, determined Negro who stares back unflinchingly. One picture is worth a thousand words. F. N. Boney University of Georgia Owen Lovejoy: Abolitionist in Congress. By Edward Magdol. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1967. Pp. xi, 493. $10.00.) Elijah Lovejoy, who was murdered in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, was one of the great martyrs of die antislavery movement, and he has somewhat overshadowed his younger brother, Owen, a leader among die political abolitionists of the Middle West. Owen Lovejoy was bom in Maine, but migrated as a young man to Illinois, where he finally settled in the town of Princeton. Trained for die priesthood in die Episcopal church, Lovejoy was refused ordination because he would not pledge himself to desist from discussing die slavery question. He then became a Congregational minister. In die 1840's he became a leader in die Liberty and Free Soil parties in Illinois and in die mid-fifties was in die vanguard of the Republican party movement. It was at this point that Lovejoy first became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, who cautiously made his way into the Republican party. Although Lovejoy was more radical than Lincoln and freely admitted diat he was an abolitionist, a mutual respect and ultimately a warm friendship developed between the two men. Magdol places great emphasis on this relationship, and cites it as evidence that the cleavage between Lincoln and die Radicals has been exaggerated. Lovejoy was elected to Congress in 1856 and served until his death in 1864. A gifted orator, he became one of die major debators on the slavery question during the turbulent pre-war years. In 1859 he was appointed chairman of die House Committee on Public Lands, and in 18650 guided through Congress the homestead bill which was vetoed by President Buchanan . He also entered vigorously into die debates on banking and currency, voicing an orthodox, hard money point of view. Although Magdol has consulted a number of manuscript collections, he relies more heavily on newspapers. The Western Citizen, a leading Free Soil organ in Illinois, is one of his most fertile sources. Indeed, there is a great deal of pertinent material on the evolution of political abolitionism in Illinois, and herein may lie the major value of the book. Although Lovejoy emerges as a genuine personality—a dedicated and courageous though not vindictive man—this reviewer would have welcomed a somewhat more searching analysis of Lovejoy's role in die antislavery BOOK REVIEWS189 movement and as a Radical Republican. Was Lovejoy influenced by Finney or Weld? (Magdol suggests that he may have been influenced by die latter.) To what extent was he retaliating for his brother's death? Did he share widi odiers that combination of reformism and ambition which seems to have provided the driving force for many political abolitionists? What of Lovejoy's private life? Apparently he was a loving fadier and husband in a felicitous family setting, but we are given very few clues to the inner side of his character. Magdol prefers to present a scholarly and detailed account of the outward Lovejoy. In this he has been eminendy successful. Patrck Riddleberger Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Joe Lane of Oregon: Machine Politics and the Sectional Crisis, 18491861 . By James E. Hendrickson. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967. Pp. xiii, 274. $6.50.) In this study of frontier leadership and territorial politics James E. Hendrickson skillfully uses the pivotal figure of Joseph Lane to trace and explain die disintegration of die Democratic party that dominated the Oregon Territory for most of the decade before the Civil War. Hendrickson is not the first to focus on early political developments in Oregon. The pioneer treatment of the subject is Walter Carleton Woodward , The Rise and Early History of Political Parties in Oregon, 18431868 (1913), a book still useful for detailing the...