Chapter XIII: John Brown--Hero and Martyr

JOHN BROWN'S APPEARANCE IN KANSAS.--HE DENOUNCES SLAVERY IN A
POLITICAL MEETING AT OSAWATOMIE.--MRS. STEARNS'S PERSONAL
RECOLLECTION OF JOHN BROWN.--KANSAS INFESTED BY BORDER
RUFFIANS.--THE BATTLE OF HARPER'S FERRY.--THE DEFEAT AND CAPTURE
OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN.--HIS LAST LETTER WRITTEN TO MRS.
STEARNS.--HIS TRIAL AND EXECUTION.--HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE
SLAVERY QUESTION AT THE NORTH.--HIS PLACE IN HISTORY.

On the 9th of May, 1800, at Torrington, Connecticut, was born a man who lived for two generations, but accomplished the work of two centuries. That man was John Brown, who ranks among the world's greatest heroes. Greater than Peter the Hermit, who believed himself commissioned of God to redeem the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of infidels; greater than Joanna Southcote, who deemed herself big with the promised Shiloh; greater than Ignatius Loyola, who thought the Son of Man appeared to him, bearing His cross upon His shoulders, and bestowed upon him a Latin commission of wonderful significance; greater than Oliver Cromwell, the great Republican Protector; and greater than John Hampden,--he deserves to rank with William of Orange.

John Brown was nearly six feet high, slim, wiry, dark in complexion, sharp in feature, dark hair sprinkled with gray, eyes a dark gray and penetrating, with a countenance that betokened frankness, honesty, and firmness. His brow was prominent, the centre of the forehead flat, the upper part retreating, which, in conjunction with his slightly Roman nose, gave him an interesting appearance. The crown of his head was remarkably high, in the regions of the phrenological organs of firmness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, indicating a stern will, unswerving integrity, and marvellous self-possession. He walked rapidly with a firm and elastic tread. He was somewhat like John Baptist, taciturn in habits, usually wrapped in meditation. He was rather meteoric in his movements, appearing suddenly and unexpectedly at this place, and then disappearing in the same mysterious manner.

When Kansas lay bleeding at the feet of border ruffians; when Congress gave the free-State settlers no protection, but was rather trying to drag the territory into the Union with a slave constitution,--without noise or bluster John Brown dropped down into Osage County. He was not a member of the Republican party; but rather hated its reticency. When it cried Halt! he gave the command _Forward, march_! He was not in sympathy with any of the parties, political or anti-slavery. All were too conservative to suit him. So, as a political orphan he went into Kansas, organized and led a new party that swore eternal death to slavery. The first time he appeared in a political meeting in Kansas, at Osawatomie, the politicians were trimming their speeches and shaping their resolutions to please each political faction. John Brown took the floor and made a speech that threw the convention into consternation. He denounced slavery as the curse of the ages; affirmed the manhood of the slave; dealt "middle men" terrible blows; and said he could "see no use in talking." "Talk," he continued, "is a national institution; but it does no good for the slave." He thought it an excuse very well adapted for weak men with tender consciences. Most men who were afraid to fight, and too honest to be silent, deceived themselves that they discharged their duties to the slave by denouncing in fiery words the oppressor. His ideas of duty were far different; the slaves, in his eyes, were prisoners of war; their tyrants, as he held, had taken up the sword, and must perish by it. This was his view of the great question of slavery.

The widow of the late Major George L. Stearns gives the following personal recollections of John Brown, in a bright and entertaining style. Mrs. Stearns's noble husband was very intimately related to the "old hero," and what Mrs. Stearns writes is of great value.

"The passage of the Fugitive-Slave Bill in 1850, followed by the
virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise, under the name of the
Kansas Nebraska Act, in 1854, alarmed all sane people for the
safety of republican institutions; and the excitement reached a
white heat when, on the 22d of May, 1856, Charles Sumner was
murderously assaulted in the Senate chamber by Preston S. Brooks,
of South Carolina, for words spoken in debate: the celebrated
speech of the 19th and 20th of May, known as 'The Crime Against
Kansas.' That same week the town of Lawrence in the territory of
Kansas was sacked and burned in the interest of the slave power.
The atrocities committed by the 'Border Ruffians' upon the
free-State settlers sent a thrill of terror through all
law-abiding communities. In Boston the citizens gathered in
Faneuil Hall to consider what could be done, and a committee was
chosen, with Dr. S. G. Howe as chairman, for the relief of
Kansas, called the 'Kansas Relief Committee.' After some $18,000
or $20,000 had been collected, chiefly in Boston, and forwarded
to Kansas, the interest flagged, and Mr. Stearns, who had been
working with that committee, saw the need of more energetic
action; so one day he went to Dr. Howe, and told him he was ready
to give _all_ his time, and much of his money, to push forward
the work. Dr. Howe seeing that here was the man for the hour,
immediately resigned, and Mr. Stearns was chosen unanimously
chairman of the 'Massachusetts State Kansas Committee,' which
took the place of the one first organized. In the light of
subsequent history it is difficult to believe the apathy and
blindness which failed to recognize the significance of this
attack upon Kansas by the slave-holding power. Only faithful
watchmen in their high towers could see that it was the first
battle-ground between the two conflicting systems of freedom and
slavery, which was finally to culminate in the war of the
Rebellion. 'Working day and night without haste or rest,' failing
in no effort to rouse and stimulate the community, still Mr.
Stearns found that a vitalizing interest was wanting. When Gov.
Reeder was driven in disguise from the territory, he wrote to him
to come to Boston and address the people. He organized a
mass-meeting for him in Tremont Temple, and for a few days the
story he related stimulated to a livelier activity the more
conservative people, who were inclined to think the reports of
the free-State men much exaggerated. Soon, however, things
settled back into the old sluggish way; so that for three
consecutive committee meetings the chairman was the only person
who presented himself at the appointed time and place. Nothing
daunted, he turned to the country towns, and at the end of five
months he had raised by his personal exertions, and through his
agents, the sum of $48,000. Women formed societies all over the
State, for making and furnishing clothing, and various supplies,
which resulted in an addition of some $20,000 or $30,000 more. In
January, 1867, this species of work was stopped, by advices from
Kansas that no more contributions were needed, except for
_defense_. At this juncture Mr. Stearns wrote to John Brown, that
if he would come to Boston and consult with the friends of
freedom he would pay his expenses. They had never met, but
'Osawatomie Brown' had become a cherished household name during
the anxious summer of 1856.[66] Arriving in Boston, they were
introduced to each other in the street by a Kansas man, who
chanced to be with Mr. Stearns on his way to the committee rooms
in Nilis's Block, School Street. Captain Brown made a profound
impression on all who came within the sphere of his moral
magnetism. Emerson called him 'the most ideal of men, for he
wanted to put all his ideas into action.' His absolute
superiority to all selfish aims and narrowing pride of opinion
touched an answering chord in the self-devotion of Mr. Stearns. A
little anecdote illustrates the modest estimate of the work he
had in hand. After several efforts to bring together certain
friends to meet Captain Brown at his home in Medford, he found
that Sunday was the only day that would serve their several
convenience, and being a little uncertain how it might strike his
ideas of religious propriety, he prefaced his invitation with
something like an apology. With characteristic promptness came
the reply: 'Mr. Stearns, I have a little ewe-lamb that I want to
pull out of the ditch, and the Sabbath will be as good a day as
any to do it.'

"It was this occasion which furnished to literature one of the
most charming bits of autobiography. Our oldest son, Harry, a lad
of eleven years, was an observant listener, and drank eagerly
every word that was said of the cruel wrongs in Kansas, and of
slavery everywhere. When the gentlemen rose to go, he privately
asked his father if he might be allowed to give all his spending
money to John Brown. Leave being granted, he bounded away, and
returning with his small treasure, said: 'Captain Brown, will you
buy something with this money for those poor people in Kansas,
and some time will you write to me and tell me _what sort of a
little boy_ you were?' 'Yes, my son, I will, and God bless you
for your kind heart!' The autobiography has been printed many
times, but never before with the key which unlocked it.

"It may not be out of place to describe the impression he made
upon the writer on this first visit. When I entered the parlor,
he was sitting near the hearth, where glowed a bright open fire.
He rose to greet me, stepping forward with such an erect,
military bearing; such fine courtesy of demeanor and grave
earnestness, that he seemed to my instant thought some old
Cromwellian hero suddenly dropped down before me; a suggestion
which was presently strengthened by his saying [proceeding with
the conversation my entrance had interrupted]: 'Gentlemen, I
consider the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence one
and inseparable; and it is better that a whole generation of men,
women, and children should be swept away, than that this crime of
slavery should exist one day longer.' These words were uttered
like rifle balls; in such emphatic tones and manner that our
little Carl, not three years old, remembered it in manhood as one
of his earliest recollections. The child stood perfectly still,
in the middle of the room, gazing with his beautiful eyes on this
new sort of man, until his absorption arrested the attention of
Captain Brown, who soon coaxed him to his knee, tho' the look of
awe and childlike wonder remained. His dress was of some dark
brown stuff, quite coarse, but its exactness and neatness
produced a singular air of refinement. At dinner, he declined all
dainties, saying that he was unaccustomed to luxuries, even to
partaking of butter.

"The 'friends of freedom' with whom Mr. Stearns had invited John
Brown to consult were profoundly impressed with his sagacity,
integrity, and devotion; notably among these were R. W. Emerson,
Theodore Parker, H. D. Thoreau, A. Bronson Alcott, F. B. Sanborn,
Dr. S. G. Howe, Col. T. W. Higginson, Gov. Andrew, and others. In
February (1857) he appeared before a committee of the State
Legislature, to urge that Massachusetts should make an
appropriation in money in aid of those persons who had settled in
Kansas from her own soil. The speech is printed in Redpath's
'Life.' He obtained at this time, from the Massachusetts State
Kansas Committee,[67] some two hundred Sharp's rifles, with which
to arm one hundred mounted men for the defense of Kansas, who
could also be of service to the peculiar property of Missouri. In
those dark days of slave-holding supremacy, the friends of
freedom felt justified in aiding the flight of its victims to
free soil whenever and wherever opportunity offered. The
Fugitive-Slave Law was powerless before the law written on the
enlightened consciences of those devoted men and women. These
rifles had been forwarded previously to the National Committee at
Chicago, for the defense of Kansas, but for some unexplained
reasons had never proceeded farther than Tabor, in the State of
Iowa. Later on, Mr. Stearns, in his individual capacity,
authorized Captain Brown to purchase two hundred revolvers from
the Massachusetts Arms Company, and paid for them from his
private funds, thirteen or fifteen hundred dollars. During the
summer of 1857 he united with Mr. Amos A. Lawrence and others in
paying off the mortgage held by Mr. Gerritt Smith on his house
and farm at North Elba, N. Y., he paying two hundred and sixty
dollars. It would be difficult to state the entire amount of
money Mr. Stearns put into the hands of John Brown for
Anti-Slavery purposes and his own subsistence. He kept no account
of what he gave. In April or May, 1857, he gave him a check for
no less a sum than seven thousand dollars. Early in 1858, Hon.
Henry Wilson wrote to Dr. S. G. Howe that he had learned John
Brown was suspected of the intention of using those arms in other
ways than for the _defense_ of Kansas; and by order of the
committee, Mr. Stearns wrote (under date May 14, 1858) to Brown
not to use them for any other purpose, and to hold them subject
to his order, as chairman of said committee. When the operations
of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee virtually ceased, in
June or July, 1858, it happened that this committee were some
four thousand dollars in debt to Mr. Stearns, for advances of
money from time to time to keep the organization in existence;
and it was voted to make over to the chairman these two hundred
Sharp's rifles as part payment of the committee's indebtedness.
They were of small account to Mr. Stearns. He knew them to be in
good hands, and troubled himself no further about them, either
the rifles or the revolvers; although keeping up from time to
time a correspondence with his friend upon the all-engrossing
subject.

"In February of 1859, John Brown was in Boston, and talked with
some of his friends about the feasibility of entrenching himself,
with a little band of men, in the mountains of Virginia, familiar
to him from having surveyed them as engineer in earlier life. His
plan was to open communication with the slaves of neighboring
plantations, collect them together, and send them off in squads,
as he had done in Missouri, 'without snapping a gun.' Mr. Stearns
had so much more faith in John Brown's opposition to _Slavery_,
than in any theories he advanced of the _modus operandi_, that
they produced much less impression on his mind than upon some
others gifted with more genius for details. _From first to last,
he believed in John Brown._ His plans, or theories, might be
feasible, or they might not. If the glorious old man wanted money
to try his plans, he should have it. His plans might fail;
probably would, but _he_ could never be a failure. There he
stood, unconquerable, in the panoply of divine Justice. Both of
these men were of the martyr type. No thought or consideration
for themselves, for _history_, or the estimation of others, ever
entered into their calculations. It was the service of _Truth_
and _Right_ which brought them together, and in that service they
were ready to die.

"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 God'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 Massachusetts, but
subsequently changed his opinion, and urged Mr. Stearns to take
passage 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 constitutionally 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 'friendship'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 rectitude 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 circumstances, 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 retarded 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 God 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, Massachusetts, 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 Douglass 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 constitution 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 emancipation 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 furnishing the rope to strangle the noblest 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
illustrates 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, Mass.

"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 God 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 citizenship. 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 God sent them to do a certain work--to reveal a hidden truth; to pour light into the minds of benighted and superstitious men. They completed their work; they did nobly 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 institution was felt from its centre to its utmost limits. It was the entering wedge; it laid bare the accursed institution, 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 God 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 pronounced with blessings in all lands and by all people till the end of time.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] This was in the last days of 1856.

[67] The committee also authorized him to draw on their treasurer, Patrick L. Jackson, for $500.

[68] Samuel Johnson, the accomplished Oriental scholar and devoted friend of the slave.

[69] The italics are his.

[70] The above account of Capt. Brown was prepared for us by the widow of the late Major Geo. L. Stearns. It is printed as written, and breathes a beautiful spirit of love and tender remembrance for the two heroes mentioned.

[71] This letter is printed for the first time, with Mrs. Stearns's consent.

PART 7.

_THE NEGRO IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION._