History of the Negro Race in America Volume II Part 27

"In the words of an eminent writer[68]: 'A common spirit made these two men recognize each other at first sight; and the power of both lay in that inability to weigh difficulties against duty, that instant step of thought to deed, which makes individuals fully possessed by the idea of the age, the turning-points of its destiny; hands in the right place for touching the match to the train it has laid, or for leading the public will to the heart of its moral need. They knew each other as minute-men on the same watch; as men to be found _in_ the breach, before others knew where it was; they were one in pity, one in indignation, one in moral enthusiasm, burning beneath features set to patient self-control; one in simplicity, though of widely different culture; one in religious inspiration, though at the poles of religious thought. The old frontiersman came from his wilderness toils and agonies to find within the merchant's mansion of art and taste by the side of Bunker Hill, a perfect sympathy: the reverence of children, tender interest in his broken household, free access to a rich man's resources, and even a valor kindred with his own.'

"The attack upon Harper's Ferry was a 'side issue,' to quote the words of John Brown, Jr., and a departure from his father's original plan. It certainly took all his friends by surprise. In his letter of Nov. 15, 1859 (while in prison), to his old schoolmaster, the Rev. H. L. Vaill, are these words: 'I am not as yet, in the _main_, at all disappointed. I have been a good deal disappointed as it regards _myself_ in not keeping up to my own plans; but I now feel entirely reconciled to that even: for G.o.d's plan was infinitely better, _no doubt_, or I should have kept my own. Had Samson kept to his determination of not telling Delilah wherein his great strength lay, he would probably have never overturned the house. _I did not tell Delilah_; but I was induced to act very _contrary to my better judgment_.'[69]

"It is idle to endeavor to explain, by any methods of the _understanding_, any rules of worldly wisdom, or prudence, this influx of the Divine Will, which has made John Brown already an ideal character. 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof; but know not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.' So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Man works in the midst of laws which execute themselves, more especially, if by virtue of obedience he has lost sight of all selfish aims, and perceives that Truth and Right alone can claim allegiance.

Emerson says: 'Divine intelligence carries on its administration by good men; that great men are they who see that the spiritual are greater than any material forces; and that really there never was any thing great accomplished but under religious impulse.'

"The deadly _Atheism_ of Slavery was rolling its car of Juggernaut all over the beautiful Republic, and one pure soul was inspired to confront it by a practical interpretation of the Golden Rule.

"That Virginia would hang John Brown was a foregone conclusion.

The Moloch of Slavery would have nothing less. His friends exerted themselves to secure the best counsel which could be induced to undertake the _formality_ of a defense, foremost among whom was Mr. Stearns. A well-organized plan was made to rescue him, conducted by a brave man from Kansas, Col. James Montgomery, but a message came from the prisoner, that he should not feel at liberty to walk out, if the doors were left open; a sense of honor to his jailer (Captain Acvis) forbidding any thing of the kind.

"Not a little anxiety was felt lest certain of his adherents might be summoned as witnesses, whose testimony would lessen the chances of acquittal, and possibly involve their own lives. John A. Andrew (afterward Gov. Andrew) gave it as his opinion, after an exhaustive search of the records, that Virginia would have no right to summon these persons from Ma.s.sachusetts, but subsequently changed his opinion, and urged Mr. Stearns to take pa.s.sage to Europe, sending him home one day to pack his valise.

The advice was opposed to his instincts, but he considered that his wife should have a voice in the matter, who decided, 'midst many tears and prayers, that if slavery required another victim, he must be ready.

"With Dr. Howe it was quite different. He became possessed with a dread that threatened to overwhelm his reason. He was in delicate health, and const.i.tutionally subject to violent attacks of nervous headache. One day he came to Medford and insisted that Mr. Stearns should accompany him to Canada, urging that if he remained here he should be insane, and that Mr. Stearns of all his friends was the only one who would be at all satisfactory to him. This request, or rather demand, Mr. Stearns promptly declined. How well I remember his agitation, walking up and down the room, and finally entreating Mr. Stearns for 'friends.h.i.+p's sake' to go and take care of him. I can recall no instance of such self-abnegation in my husband's self-denying career. He did not _stoop_ to an _explanation_, even when Dr. Howe declared in his presence, some months later, "that he never did any thing in his life he so much wished to take back." I had hoped that Dr.

Howe would himself have spared me from making this contribution to the truth of history.

"On the 2d of December, Mr. Stearns yearned for the solitude of his own soul, in communion of spirit, with the friend who, on that day, would 'make the gallows glorious like the Cross'; and he left Dr. Howe and took the train for Niagara Falls. There, sitting alone beside the mighty rush of water, he solemnly consecrated his remaining life, his fortune, and all that was most dear, to the _cause_ in whose service John Brown had died.

"How well and faithfully he kept his vow, may partly be seen in his subsequent efforts in recruiting the colored troops at a vital moment in the terrible war of the Rebellion which so swiftly followed the sublime apotheosis of 'Old John Brown.'"[70]

That John Brown intended to free the slaves, and nothing more, the record shows clearly. His move on Harper's Ferry was well planned, and had all the parties interested done their part the work would have been done well. As to the rect.i.tude of his intentions he gives the world this leaf of history:

"And now, gentlemen, let me press this one thing on your minds.

You all know how dear life is to you, and how dear your lives are to your friends: and in remembering that, consider that the lives of others are as dear to them as yours are to you. Do not, therefore, take the life of any one if you can possibly avoid it; but if it is necessary to take life in order to save your own, then make sure work of it."--John Brown, before the battle at Harper's Ferry.

"I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. The design on my part was to free the slaves."--John Brown, after the battle at Harper's Ferry.

Distance lends enchantment to the view. What the world condemns to-day is applauded to-morrow.

We must have a "fair count" on the history of yesterday and last year.

The events chronicled yesterday, when the imagination was wrought upon by exciting circ.u.mstances, need revision to-day.

The bitter words spoken this morning reproach at eventide the smarting conscience. And the judgments prematurely formed, and the conclusions rapidly reached, maybe rectified and repaired in the light of departed years and enlarged knowledge.

John Brown is rapidly settling down to his proper place in history, and "the madman" has been transformed into a "saint." When Brown struck his first blow for freedom, at the head of his little band of liberators, it was almost the universal judgment of both Americans and foreigners that he was a "fanatic." It seemed the very soul of weakness and arrogance for John Brown to attempt to do so great a work with so small a force. Men reached a decision with the outer and surface facts. But many of the most important and historically trustworthy truths bearing upon the motive, object, and import of that "bold move," have been hidden from the public view, either by prejudice or fear.

Some people have thought John Brown--"_The Hero of Harper's Ferry_"--a hot-headed, blood-thirsty brigand; they animadverted against the precipitancy of his measures, and the severity of his invectives; said that he was lacking in courage and deficient in judgment; that he r.e.t.a.r.ded rather than accelerated the cause he championed. But this was the verdict of other times, not the judgment of to-day.

John Brown said to a personal friend during his stay in Kansas: "Young men must learn to wait. Patience is the hardest lesson to learn. I have waited for twenty years to accomplish my purpose." These are not the words of a mere visionary idealist, but the mature language of a practical and judicious leader, a leader than whom the world has never seen a greater. By greatness is meant deep convictions of duty, a sense of the Infinite, "a strong hold on truth," a "conscience void of offence toward G.o.d and man," to which the appeals of the innocent and helpless are more potential than the voices of angry thunder or destructive artillery. Such a man was John Brown. He was strong in his moral and mental nature, as well as in his physical nature. He was born to lead; and he led, and made himself the pro-martyr of a cause rapidly perfecting. All through his boyhood days he felt himself lifted and quickened by great ideas and sublime purposes. He had flowing in his veins the blood of his great ancestor, Peter Brown, who came over in the "Mayflower"; and the following inscription appears upon a marble monument in the graveyard at Canton Centre, New York: "In memory of Captain John Brown, who died in the Revolutionary army, at New York, September 3, 1776. He was of the fourth generation, in regular descent, from Peter Brown, one of the Pilgrim Fathers, who landed from the 'Mayflower,' at Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, December 22, 1620." This is the best commentary on his inherent love of absolute liberty, his marvellous courage and transcendent military genius. For years he elaborated and perfected his plans, working upon the public sentiment of his day by the most praiseworthy means. He bent and bowed the most obdurate conservatism of his day, and rallied to his standards the most eminent men, the strongest intellects in the North.

His ethics and religion were as broad as the universe, and beneficent in their wide ramification. And it was upon his "religion of humanity," that embraced our entire species, that he proceeded with his herculean task of striking off the chains of the enslaved. Few, very few of his most intimate friends knew his plans--the plan of freeing the slaves. Many knew his great faith, his exalted sentiments, his ideas of liberty, in their crudity; but to a faithful few only did he reveal his stupendous plans in their entirety.

Hon. Frederick Dougla.s.s and Colonel Richard J. Hinton, knew more of Brown's real purposes than any other persons, with the exception of J.

H. Kagi, Osborn Anderson, Owen Brown, Richard Realf, and George B.

Gill.

"Of men born of woman," there is not a greater than John Brown. He was the forerunner of Lincoln, the great apostle of freedom.

One year before he went to Harper's Ferry, a friend met Brown in Kansas [in June, 1858], and learned that during the previous month he had brought almost all of his plans to perfection; and that the day and hour were fixed to strike the blow. One year before, a convention had met, on the 8th of May, 1858, at Chatham, Canada. At this convention a provisional const.i.tution and ordinances were drafted and adopted, with the following officers: Commander-in-Chief, John Brown; Secretary of War, J. H. Kagi; Members of Congress, Alfred M.

Ellsworth, Osborn Anderson; Treasurer, Owen Brown; Secretary of the Treasury, Geo. B. Gill; Secretary of State, Richard Realf.

John Brown made his appearance in Ohio and Canada in the spring of 1859. He wrote letters, made speeches, collected funds for his little army, and made final arrangements with his Northern allies, etc. He purchased a small farm, about six miles from Harper's Ferry, on the Maryland side, and made it his ordnance depot. He had 102 Sharp's rifles, 68 pistols, 55 bayonets, 12 artillery swords, 483 pikes, 150 broken handles of pikes, 16 picks, 40 shovels, besides quite a number of other appurtenances of war. This was in July. He intended to make all of his arrangements during the summer of 1859, and meet his men in the Alleghanies in the fall of the same year.

The apparent rashness of the John Brown movement may be mitigated somewhat by the fact that he failed to carry out his original plan.

During the summer of 1859 he instructed his Northern soldiers and sympathizers to be ready for the attack on the night of the 24th of October, 1859. But while at Baltimore, in September, he got the impression that there was conspiracy in his camp, and in order to preclude its consummation, suddenly, without sending the news to his friends at the North, determined to strike the first blow on the night of the 17th of October. The news of his battle and his bold stand against the united forces of Virginia and Maryland swept across the country as the wild storm comes down the mountain side. Friend and foe were alike astonished and alarmed. The enemies of the cause he represented, when they recovered from their surprise, laughed their little laugh of scorn, and eased their feelings by referring to him as the "madman." Friends faltered, and, while they did not question his earnestness, doubted his judgment. "Why," they asked, "should he act with such palpable rashness, and thereby render more difficult and impossible the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves?" They claimed that the blow he struck, instead of severing, only the more tightly riveted, the chains upon the helpless and hapless Blacks. But in the face of subsequent history we think his surviving friends will change their views. There is no proof that his fears were not well grounded; that a conspiracy was in progress. And who can tell whether a larger force would have been more effective, or the night of the 24th more opportune? May it not be believed that the good old man was right, and that Harper's Ferry was just the place, and the 17th of October just the time to strike for freedom, and make the rock-ribbed mountains of Virginia to tremble at the presence of a "master!"--the king of freedom?

He was made a prisoner on the 19th of October, 1859, and remained until the 7th of November without a change of clothing or medical aid.

Forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment he expiated his crime upon the scaffold--a crime against slave-holding, timorous Virginia, for bringing liberty to the oppressed. He was a man, and there was nothing that interested man which was foreign to his nature. He had gone into Virginia to save life, not to destroy it. The sighs and groans of the oppressed had entered into his soul.

He had heard the Macedonian cry to come over and help them. He went, and it cost him his life, but he gave it freely.

Captain Acvis, the jailer, said: "He was the gamest man I ever saw."

And Mr. Valandingham, at that time a member of Congress from Ohio, and who examined him in court, said in a speech afterward.

"It is in vain to underrate either the man or the conspiracy.

Captain John Brown is as brave and resolute a man as ever headed an insurrection, and, in a good cause, and with a sufficient force, would have been a consummate partisan commander. He has coolness, daring, persistency, stoic faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable! He is the farthest possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman."

No friend, howsoever ardent in his love, could have woven a chaplet more worthy than the one placed upon the brow of the old hero by his most embittered foe. A truer estimate of John Brown cannot be had.

South Carolina, Missouri, and Kentucky sent a rope to hang him, but, the first two lacking strength, Kentucky had the everlasting disgrace of furnis.h.i.+ng the rope to strangle the n.o.blest man that ever lived in any age.

The last letter he ever wrote was written to Mrs. Geo. L. Stearns, and she shall give its history:

This letter requires the history which attaches to it, and ill.u.s.trates the consideration which the brave martyr had for those in any way connected with him. It was written on a half sheet of paper, the exact size of the pages of a book into which he carefully inserted it, and tied up in a handkerchief with other books and papers, which he asked his jailer (Mr. Avis) to be allowed to go with his body to North Elba, and which Mrs.

Brown took with her from the Charlestown prison. Her statement to me about it is this: She had been at home some two weeks, had looked over the contents of the handkerchief many times, when one day in turning the leaves of that particular book, she came upon this letter, on which she said she found two or three blistered spots, the only _tear drops_ she had seen among his papers. They are now yellow with time. On the back of the half sheet was written: "Please mail this to her," which she did, and so it reached my hand; seeming as if from the world to which his spirit had fled. It quite overwhelmed my husband. Presently he said: "See, dear, how careful the old man has been, he would not even direct it with your name to go from Virginia to Boston through the post-offices; and altho' it contains no message to me, one of those '_farewells_!' is intended for me, and also the 'Love to _All_ who love their neighbors.'"

"CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON CO VA. 29th Nov. 1859.

"MRS. GEORGE L. STEARNS "Boston, Ma.s.s.

"My Dear Friend:--No letter I have received since my imprisonment here, has given me more satisfaction, or comfort, than yours of the 8th inst. I am quite cheerful: and never more happy. Have only time to write you a word. May G.o.d forever reward you _and all yours_.

"_My love to_ ALL who love their neighbors. I have asked to be _spared_ from having any _mock, or hypocritical prayers made over me_ when I am publicly _murdered_; and that my only _religious attendents_ be _poor little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded and barefooted, Slave Boys; and Girls_, led by some old _gray-headed slave Mother_.

"Farewell. Farewell.

"Your Friend, "JOHN BROWN."[71]

The man who hung him, Governor Wise, lived to see the plans of Brown completed and his most cherished hopes fulfilled. He heard the warning shot fired at Sumter, saw Richmond fall, the war end in victory to the party of John Brown; saw the slave-pen converted into the school-house, and the four millions Brown fought and died for, elevated to the honors of citizens.h.i.+p. And at last he has entered the grave, where his memory will perish with his body, while the soul and fame of John Brown go marching down the centuries!

Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and John Brown have to wait the calmer judgments of future generations. These men believed that G.o.d sent them to do a certain work--to reveal a hidden truth; to pour light into the minds of benighted and superst.i.tious men. They completed their work; they did n.o.bly and well, then bowed to rest--

"With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings, The powerful of the earth,"

while generation after generation studies their handwriting on the wall of time and interprets their thoughts. Despised, persecuted, and unappreciated while in the flesh, they are honored after death, and enrolled among earth's good and great, her wise and brave. The shock Brown gave the walls of the slave inst.i.tution was felt from its centre to its utmost limits. It was the entering wedge; it laid bare the accursed inst.i.tution, and taught good men everywhere to hate it with a perfect hatred. Slavery received its death wound at the hands of a "lonely old man." When he smote Virginia, the non-resistants, the anti-slavery men, learned a lesson. They saw what was necessary to the accomplishment of their work, and were now ready for the "worst." He rebuked the conservatism of the North, and gave an example of adherence to duty, devotion to truth, and fealty to G.o.d and man that make the mere "professor" to tremble with shame. "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the clay," but his immortal name will be p.r.o.nounced with blessings in all lands and by all people till the end of time.

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