History of Madison County, Illinois #1

The tort reform lobby knows Madison County, Illinois, by one name only: the nation’s “top legal hellhole.” Today I’ll start painting a more accurate picture of my law firm’s hometown with some short posts about our county’s history. I’ll begin with a short biography of famed abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy.

Born in 1802, Elijah Lovejoy began publishing an abolitionist newspaper called the St. Louis Observer in the 1830s. The readers in the slave state of Missouri weren’t Lovejoy’s best audience, and in 1836, a mob wrecked his printing press. Just across the Mississippi River was the free state of Illinois. It was there in the Madison County town of Alton, Illinois, that Lovejoy sought sanctuary and began publishing the Alton Observer.

First Amendment principles were important to Lovejoy. In his newspaper, he wrote: "We distinctly avow it to be our settled purpose, never, while life lasts, to yield to this new system of attempting to destroy, by means of mob violence, the right of conscience, the freedom of opinion, and of the press."

Noble words, and Lovejoy’s first line of defense. But his detractors had guns, and they followed him from Missouri to Illinois. Three times his printing presses were destroyed. Then in 1837, during a fourth run at Lovejoy’s press, his detractors got him with a shotgun blast. Thirty-five years old, he died in the arms of a friend.

Today Elijah Lovejoy is honored in the “legal hellhole” with a 93-foot monument in Alton, Illinois, just a few miles from my firm’s offices. For more, look here and here.

Comments

[T P B, Esq.]

Actually, "hellhole," for tort defense attorneys is not fair. From what I've read of verdicts, there is a county in Texas, most well known to lawyers for being the site of the U.S. S.Ct. decision in Volkswagen, AG v. Woodson [was it Woodson?], the famous jurisdiction case about forum shopping. Apparently, that county gives more in verdicts than any/many others.

[Evan]

TPB: The kind folks of Madison County, Illinois, thank you for sticking up for them. You should also know, however, that there is now a group of people in Texas who are not quite as pleased. Someone's always going to be unhappy, I guess!

[blogMan]

Yo dude, Elijah Lovejoy may be my great great uncle. I found this doing a search for family roots. I will post back if I can find any history that would sound interesting. Peace, nice blog.