His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838-64.

His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838-64. By Owen Lovejoy. Edited by William F. Moore and Jane Ann Moore. Foreword by Paul Simon. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, c. 2004. Pp. xxxviii, 432. $50.00, ISBN 0-252-02919-4.)

Remembered most often as the brother of Elijah Lovejoy, the antislavery martyr, or as a friend of Abraham Lincoln, Owen Lovejoy, an abolitionist minister and congressman, is usually overshadowed by more prominent figures. The editors argue that the tendency to overlook Owen Lovejoy distorts history, for Lovejoy himself "made a significant contribution to the end of slavery in America" (p. xix).

Lovejoy emerged on the national scene in 1838, soon after his brother Elijah died while defending his antislavery newspaper from a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois. Capitalizing on public interest in his brother's death, Lovejoy presented a radical message that asked his audiences to vindicate his brother's blood by supporting the antislavery cause. Although Lovejoy never completely left behind his identity as the martyr's brother, by the 1840s he increasingly stepped out of Elijah's shadow, relying on his own fame to draw an audience and upon the merits of his antislavery argument to win converts. His argument evolved, too, as Lovejoy's own role changed from that of abolitionist pastor to antislavery politician. Initially basing his argument on religious precepts and presenting himself in the role of Old Testament prophet--proclaiming slaveholding to be sin and calling down God's righteous judgment--Lovejoy increasingly cast his arguments in terms of abstract natural rights and constitutional principles. Scholars will, thus, be interested in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838-64 for the insights that Lovejoy's speeches provide on the modifications and compromises that many religiously oriented abolitionists made as they entered the world of politics in the 1840s and 1850s.

Lovejoy, the editors assert, went on to play the leading role in organizing antislavery political forces in the key state of Illinois in the 1840s and 1850s. He also served as a catalyst in the creation of federal emancipation policy during the Civil War. He first prodded his friend Abraham Lincoln toward supporting emancipation and then--by endorsing the president's cautious emancipation policies--used his own unimpeachable antislavery credentials to help reconcile disappointed radicals to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Lovejoy's seventy-seven speeches and sermons presented in His Brother's Blood do not by themselves prove these specific claims, but they do help reestablish Lovejoy's importance as a leading figure of the era.

The editors, William Moore and Jane Ann Moore, are codirectors of the Lovejoy Society, an organization dedicated to preserving and publicizing Lovejoy's work. His Brother's Blood is clearly a labor of love for them, the product of ten years of work collecting speeches and sermons from scattered archives and libraries. As the editors apologetically admit, they are neither professional editors nor historians, and this fact occasionally shows itself in small errors of fact scattered throughout the book. Some scholars will also object to the editors' decision to include descriptions or recollections of Lovejoy's speeches--some dating from several decades after the speeches themselves were given--when the original texts were either unavailable or hard to obtain.

The documents collected in the book are nearly all previously published speeches and sermons, so readers should not approach the book expecting to find the kind of insights into Lovejoy's personal life or inner thoughts that manuscript sources might provide. Because of the book's focus on his speeches, the Lovejoy that emerges from His Brother's Blood is, more than anything, a fiery orator and contentious debater. Despite these shortcomings, the editors are to be commended for making the work of this important antislavery activist more accessible. Few people would expect a long book of nineteenth-century speeches to be a good read, but I found myself thoroughly enjoying Lovejoy's speeches. I heartily recommend His Brother's Blood to scholars interested in the antislavery movement and northern politics during the Civil War era.

HAROLD D. TALLANT

Georgetown College