(Editor’s note: Lyman Beecher was a pastor who had 13 famous children, among them abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and Edward Beecher, the first president of Illinois College in Jacksonville. This excerpt is from a new book, “The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family.”)
When Edward [Beecher] first met Elijah Lovejoy at the commencement ceremony at Illinois College in September 1834, the two became friends. Originally from New England, Lovejoy was also an orthodox Presbyterian minister.
Whereas Beecher was “decidedly hostile to the doctrines of immediate emancipation,” Lovejoy was the editor of the abolitionist newspaper in St. Louis, called the Observer. However, just a few months later, Edward changed his mind on emancipation. Eventually, he “became satisfied, from a careful examination of the history of experiments on this subject, that the doctrine of gradual emancipation was fallacious, and that of immediate emancipation was philosophical and safe.”
As abolitionists often preached, there was a significant gap between believing and doing. Edward was not yet ready to act upon his beliefs.
When Lovejoy asked him to call a convention for the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society, Beecher replied that it was not a conciliatory organization and therefore not accepting of all antislavery positions. “On the whole I decidedly preferred to stand on my own ground,” he recalled, “to join no society—and to speak as an individual, if I spoke at all.” Indeed, he did not speak much.
In 1836, Lovejoy’s Observer press was burned to the ground by an anti-abolitionist mob. To distance himself from rioters, he moved the press across the river to Alton in Illinois, a free state.
When he came to nearby Jacksonville, he spent time with Beecher’s family and again asked Beecher to convene the Anti-Slavery Society. But this time Edward had a counterproposal. If the meeting could be opened to “friends of free inquiry,” uncommitted to abolitionism but convinced that slavery is a sin and must be ended, he would allow Lovejoy to use his name to call the meeting. Lovejoy accepted these terms. In the months that followed, Edward Beecher slowly became an abolitionist and Lovejoy’s “closest associate.”
Robert Merideth’s description of Edward’s stance during this period as a “reticent radicalism” is oxymoronic, but apt. After all, to be publicly branded as a radical abolitionist was a dangerous gamble. Just a month after returning from the General Assembly, a mob destroyed the second Observer press in August 1837. According to Merideth, this event “changed the complexion of things for Beecher.” While he was still cautious in public, there was no turning back in his mind.
At the commencement at Illinois College in September, Edward proposed to alter the “character of the convention” so that “friends of free discussion” could attend the Anti-Slavery Society in good conscience.
Wielding the hammer of free discussion to drive in the nail of emancipation, Edward was employing a familiar Beecher tool.
The area was filled with pro-Southern sympathizers. This was typical of the so-called “Butternut region,” or the southern portions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Understandably, Edward was hesitant to stand unabashed with radical extremists. But he had already gone too far to claim neutrality.
When the Anti-Slavery Society was convened, anti-abolitionists… disrupted the proceedings. To make matters worse, the third Observer press was destroyed prior to the convention.
In his first public act of defiance against the proslavery agenda, Edward managed to draw up a “Declaration of Sentiments,” asserting that slavery is in all cases sinful and denouncing any instance when an individual was regarded as property. Edward was also on a three-person committee to prepare an address to the citizens of Illinois, and he comprised a committee of one to propose topics for discussion at the next annual convention.
By November, the next Observer press was on its way to Alton, inspired by the success of the Philanthropist in Cincinnati after the riot of 1836. However, a town hall meeting was called to reach a “compromise” between Lovejoy and his opponents. Local politicians and businessmen called for Lovejoy to resign, but the editor refused to accept any terms which silenced his right to free speech.
Edward recorded Lovejoy’s response: “…by the help of God, I will stand. I know I am but one and you are many. My strength would avail but little against you all. You can crush me if you will; but I shall die at my post, for I cannot and will not forsake it.”
If these were not the exact words of Elijah Lovejoy to the officials at Alton, they were certainly Edward Beecher’s to America. Lovejoy’s harrowing experience was the final confirmation for Beecher that there could be no middle ground with anti-abolitionists. Retreat was not an option.
[Lovejoy was killed during an attack by a mob on November 7, 1834. Beecher told his story to the nation.]
Obbie Tyler Todd is a teaching pastor in South Carolina. He was previously pastor of Third Baptist Church in Marion and served on the 2025 SBC Resolutions Committee.
Resources
The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family by Obbie Tyler Todd
Todd argues that earlier scholars tended to overstate the gulf between the Calvinist revivalism of Lyman and the liberalizing views of his children and grandchildren. Instead, Todd proposes we see the Beechers as a reformist whole, whatever the later generations’ dalliances with progressive thought or heterodoxy.
The Beechers seem to represent a kind of moralistic, religiously themed activism that remains with us today, one especially common in the recent age of “wokeness.” Though the causes and enemies change over time, Beecherism shows that Christian activism can become so central to a person’s faith that we might wonder how “Christian” it really is.
—Thomas S. Kidd for The Gospel Coalition