Here is no question about the right of self-defence.  It is in fact simply this:  Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?

Some persons seem to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton from the commencement of these disputes.  Not at all.  “No one of us,” says an eyewitness and a comrade of Lovejoy, “has taken up arms during these disturbances but at the command of the Mayor.”  Anarchy did not settle down on that devoted city till Lovejoy breathed his last.  Till then the law, represented in his person, sustained itself against its foes.  When he fell, civil authority was trampled under foot.  He had “planted himself on his constitutional rights,”—­appealed to the laws,—­claimed the protection of the civil authority,—­taken refuge under “the broad shield of the Constitution.  When through that he was pierced and fell, he fell but one sufferer in a common catastrophe.”  He took refuge under the banner of liberty—­amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions, around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the martyr’s blood.

It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or his comrades fired first.  This is denied by those who have the best means of knowing.  Guns were first fired by the mob.  After being twice fired on, those within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the fire.  But suppose they did fire first.  They had a right so to do; not only the right which every citizen has to defend himself, but the further right which every civil officer has to resist violence.  Even if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it would not lessen his claim to our sympathy, or destroy his title to be considered a martyr in defence of a free press.  The question now is, Did he act within the constitution and the laws?  The men who fell in State Street, on the 5th of March, 1770, did more than Lovejoy is charged with.  They were the first assailants upon some slight quarrel, they pelted the troops with every missile within reach.  Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock and Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the cause of American liberty?  If, sir, I had adopted what are called Peace principles, I might lament the circumstances of this case.  But all you who believe as I do, in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the laws, join with me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who assemble year after year on the 4th of July to fight over the battles of the Revolution, and yet “damn with faint praise” or load with obloquy, the memory of this man who shed his blood in defence of life, liberty, property, and the freedom of the press!