His first opportunity to make a public avowal of his views occurred in 1838, when the Illinois Legislature passed a series of resolutions declaring that the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave-holding States by the Federal Constitution, and "that we highly disapprove of the formation of abolition societies and of the doctrines promulgated by them." Lincoln and five other members of the Legislature voted against these resolutions; and in order to make his position more fully understood by his constituents and the members of the Whig party throughout the State, he prepared a protest, which he persuaded Dan Stone, one of his colleagues from Sangamon County, to sign with him, and, at their request, it was spread upon the journal of the House, as follows: "Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same. "They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils. "They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States. "They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the people of the District. "The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions is their reasons for entering this protest." This, I am confident, is the first formal declaration against the system of slavery that was made in any legislative body in the United States, at least west of the Hudson River. A few months after this event occurred the tragic death of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, editor of a religious newspaper at Alton, whose antislavery editorials enraged the proslavery mob, which murdered him and threw his press and type into the Mississippi River. In this case, as in many others, the blood of a martyr was the seed of the faith. The mob that murdered Elijah P. Lovejoy did more to crystallize public opinion and stimulate the movement than all the arguments and appeals uttered up to that date.