Plate

This blue and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by an unidentified Staffordshire firm features a quotation from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution declaring freedom of religion, speech, the press and public assembly. The scrolled oval reserve on the rim above the quotation depicts an allegorical figure of Justice safeguarding a printing press and addressing a slave with the caption "The TYRANTS Foe / THE PEOPLES FREIND." Other versions of this plate substitute the phrase "Lovejoy, The first Martyr to American Liberty." Both captions refer to the famous American minister, newspaper editor and abolitionist, Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802–1837), who opposed slavery in America. Lovejoy's newspaper editorials in Alton, Illinois' "Alton Observer" and his formation of a state auxiliary to the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1837 enraged anti-abolitionists who shot him dead after numerous attempts to destroy his printing press and silence his abolitionism. Transfer-printed plates were produced after Lovejoy's demise to raise money to free the slaves. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term "transfer printing."