Part 1097

"On the 17th of October, 1859, this country was bewildered and astounded while the fifteen Slave States were convulsed with fear, rage, and hate, by telegraphic dispatches from Baltimore and Washington, announcing the outbreak, at Harper's Ferry, of a conspiracy of Abolitionists and negroes, having for its object the devastation and ruin of the South, and the massacre of her white inhabitants. … As time wore on, further advices, with particulars and circumstances, left no room to doubt the substantial truth of the original report. An attempt had actually been made to excite a slave insurrection in Northern Virginia, and the one man in America to whom such an enterprise would not seem utter insanity and suicide, was at the head of it." This was John Brown, of Osawatomie, who had been fighting slavery and the border ruffians in Kansas (see KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859) for five years, and had now changed his field. "A secret convention, called by Brown, and attended only by such whites and blacks as he believed in thorough sympathy with his views, had assembled in a negro church at Chatham, Canada West, May 8, 1858; at which Convention a 'Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States' had been adopted. It was, of course, drafted by Brown, and was essentially an embodiment of his political views. … John Brown was chosen Commander-in-Chief; J. H. Kagi, Secretary of War; Owen Brown (son of John), Treasurer; Richard Realf, Secretary of State. Brown returned to the States soon after his triumphal entry into Canada as a liberator. … He was in Hagerstown, Maryland, on the 30th [of June, 1859], where he registered his name as 'Smith, and two sons, from Western New York.' He told his landlord that they had been farming in Western New York, but had been discouraged by losing two or three years' crops by frost, and they were now looking for a milder climate, in a location adapted to wool-growing, etc. After looking about Harper's Ferry for several days, they found, five or six miles from that village, a large farm, with three unoccupied houses, the owner, Dr. Booth Kennedy, having died the last Spring. These houses they rented for a trifle until the next March, paying the rent in advance. … After they had lived there a few weeks, attracting no observation, others joined them from time to time, including two of Brown's young daughters; and one would go and another come, without exciting any particular remark. … Meantime, the greater number of the men kept out of sight during the day, so as not to attract attention, while their arms, munitions, etc., were being gradually brought from Chambersburg, in well-secured boxes. No meal was eaten on the farm, while old Brown was there, until a blessing had been asked upon it; and his Bible was in daily requisition. The night of the 24th of October was originally fixed upon by Brown for the first blow against Slavery in Virginia, by the capture of the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry; and his biographer, Redpath, alleges that many were on their way to be with him on that occasion, when they were paralyzed by the intelligence that the blow had already been struck, and had failed. The reason given for this, by one who was in his confidence, is, that Brown, who had been absent on a secret journey to the North, suspected that one of his party was a traitor, and that he must strike prematurely, or not at all. But the women who had been with them at the Kennedy farm—the wives or daughters of one or another of the party—had already been quietly sent away; and the singular complexion of their household had undoubtedly begun to excite curiosity, if not alarm, among their neighbors. … Harper's Ferry was then a village of some 5,000 inhabitants, lying on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and on either side of its principal tributary, the Shenandoah, which here enters it from the South. Its site is a mere nest or cup among high, steep mountains. … Here the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac. … Washington is 57 miles distant by turnpike; Baltimore 80 miles by railroad. … One of its very few streets was entirely occupied by the work-shops and offices of the National Armory, and had an iron railing across its entrance. In the old Arsenal building, there were usually stored from 100,000 to 200,000 stand of arms. The knowledge of this had doubtless determined the point at which the first blow of the liberators was to be struck. The forces with which Brown made his attack consisted of seventeen white and five colored men, though it is said that others who escaped assisted outside, by cutting the telegraph wires and tearing up the railroad track. The entrance of this petty army into Harper's Ferry on Sunday evening … seems to have been effected without creating alarm. They first rapidly extinguished the lights of the town; then took possession of the Armory buildings, which were only guarded by three watchmen, whom, without meeting resistance or exciting alarm, they seized and locked up in the guardhouse. It is probable that they were aided, or, at least, guided, by friendly negroes belonging in the village. … At a quarter-past one, the western train arrived, and its conductor found the bridge guarded by armed men. … A little after midnight, the house of Colonel Washington was visited by six of Brown's men under Captain Stevens, who captured the Colonel, seized his arms, horses, etc., and liberated his slaves. On their return, Stevens and party visited the house of Mr. Alstadtt and his son, whom they captured, and freed their slaves. These, with each male citizen as he appeared in the street, were confined in the Armory until they numbered between forty and fifty. Brown informed his prisoners that they could be liberated on condition of writing to their friends to send a negro apiece as ransom. At daylight, the train proceeded, Brown walking over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever anyone asked the object of their captors, the uniform answer was, 'To free the slaves;' and when one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at the Arsenal gate, asked by what authority they had taken possession of the public property, he was answered, 'By the authority of God Almighty!' The passenger train that sped eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's permission, in the early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place completely in the military possession of the insurrectionists. … {3404} But it was no longer entirely one-sided. The white Virginians, who had arms, and who remained unmolested in their houses, prepared to use them. … Several Virginians soon obtained possession of a room overlooking the Armory gates, and fired thence at the sentinels who guarded them, one of whom was mortally wounded. Still, throughout the forenoon, the liberators remained masters of the town. … Had Brown chosen to fly to the mountains with his few followers, he might still have done so, though with a much slenderer chance of impunity than if he had, according to his original plan, decamped at midnight, with such arms and ammunition as he could bear away. Why he lingered, to brave inevitable destruction, is not certain; but it may fairly be presumed that he had private assurances that the negroes of the surrounding country would rise. … At all events, if his doom was already sealed, his delay at least hastened it. Half an hour after noon, a militia force, 100 strong, arrived from Charlestown, the county seat, and were rapidly disposed so as to command every available exit from the place. … Militia continued to pour in; the telegraph and railroad having been completely repaired, so that the Government at Washington, Governor Wise at Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore, were in immediate communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters. … Night found Brown's forces reduced to three unwounded whites beside himself, with perhaps half a dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were 1,500 armed, infuriated foes. … During that night, Colonel Lee, with 90 United States marines and two pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory guard, very close to the engine-house. … At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the engine-house by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant, all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a saber and knocked down, after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old man's body."

_H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 20._

"The Virginians demonstrated amply during the Civil War that they were not cowards. What made them shake in their shoes was not John Brown and his handful of men, but the shadows which their excited imagination saw standing behind them. … The best evidence of the frightful genuineness of the panic is the brazen impudence with which it was brought forward as the justifying motive for the many atrocities which marked the trial. The brutalizing influences of slavery came to light with terrible vividness. Kapp's statement that Brown 'enjoyed very careful treatment' is not mistaken, but it is true only of the later period of his imprisonment. Watson Brown, whose life was prolonged until the early morning of the 19th of October, complained of the hard bench he was forced to lie on, His fellow-prisoner, Coppoc, begged for a mattress, or at least a blanket, for the dying man, but could obtain neither. Both Brown himself and Stevens, who was even more seriously wounded, had nothing furnished them but wretched straw. Redpath (page 373) assures us that 'from October 19 till November 7 no clean clothing was given to Brown, but that he lay in his soiled and blood-stained garments just as he had fallen at Harper's Ferry.' On the 25th of October he was brought before the court; he was not at first carried there on a camp-bed, as was the case afterward, but compelled to walk, leaning on two men. Virginia could not wait till he could stand. … There was no such haste to carry out the sentence as there had been to bring the trial to a close. On the 2d of November, Brown was sentenced to suffer death by hanging on the 2d of December."

_H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155._

"Brown actually expected that the raid on Harper's Ferry would be the stroke with which Moses called forth water from the rock. The spring was to turn southward, and in its swift course to swell to a mighty river. He declared expressly to Governor Wise, and later still in his letters, that he had not intended simply to break the chains of a few dozen or a few hundred slaves, and to take them again to Canada. Emancipation was to be spread farther and farther, and the freedmen were to remain in the Southern States. Heaven itself could not have brought this about, unless it had sent the angel of judgment to cast down into the dust the whole white population from Florida to Maine." At the last, when John Brown, wounded and a prisoner, lay waiting his death, "he did not perceive that his undertaking could not have succeeded under any circumstances; but he did see that his failure and its consequences achieved much greater results than its most complete success could have done. … 'I can leave to God,' he writes, 'the time and manner of my death, for I believe now that the sealing of my testimony before God and man with my blood will do far more to further the cause to which I have earnestly devoted myself, than anything else I have done in my life.' And a few days later, 'My health improves slowly, and I am quite cheerful concerning my approaching end, since I am convinced that I am worth infinitely more on the gallows than I could be anywhere else.' … One year after the execution of Brown, on the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina declared its secession from the Union, and on May 11, 1861, the Second Massachusetts Regiment of infantry was raised, which was first to sing on its march South: 'John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, His soul goes marching on.'"

_H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155, 125-126, 167-175._

"Editors persevered for a good while in saying that Brown was crazy; but at last they said only that it was 'a crazy scheme,' and the only evidence brought to prove it was that it cost him his life. I have no doubt that if he had gone with 5,000 men, liberated 1,000 slaves, killed a hundred or two slaveholders, and had as many more killed on his own side, but not lost his own life, these same editors would have called it by a more respectable name. Yet he has been far more successful than that."

_H. D. Thoreau, The Last Days of John Brown (Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers)._

ALSO IN: _H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 2, chapter 45._

_F. B. Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, chapters 15-17._

_J. Redpath, Public Life of Captain John Brown._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Eighth Census.

Total population, 31,443,322, being an increase exceeding 35½ per cent. over the population of 1850; classified and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. California. 361,353 4,086 0 Colorado. 34,231 46 0 Connecticut. 451,520 8,627 0 Dakota. 2,576 0 0 Illinois. 1,704,323 7,628 0 Indiana. 1,339,000 11,428 0 Iowa. 673,844 1,069 0 Kansas. 106,579 625 2 Maine. 626,952 1,327 0 Massachusetts. 1,221,464 9,602 0 Michigan. 742,314 6,799 0 Minnesota. 171,864 259 0 Nebraska. 28,759 67 15 Nevada. 6,812 45 0 New Hampshire. 325,579 494 0 New Jersey. 646,699 25,318 18 New York. 3,831,730 49,005 0 Ohio. 2,302,838 36,673 0 Oregon. 52,337 128 0 Pennsylvania. 2,849,266 56,849 0 Rhode Island. 170,668 3,952 0 Utah. 40,214 30 29 Vermont. 314,389 709 0 Washington. 11,138 30 0 Wisconsin. 774,710 1,171 0 --- --- --- Total 18,791,159 225,967 64

South.

White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 526,431 2,690 435,080 Arkansas. 324,191 144 111,115 Delaware. 90,589 19,829 1,798 District of Columbia. 60,764 11,131 3,185 Florida. 77,748 932 61,745 Georgia. 591,588 3,500 462,198 Kentucky. 919,517 10,684 225,483 Louisiana. 357,629 18,647 331,726 Maryland. 515,918 83,942 87,189 Mississippi. 353,901 773 436,631 Missouri. 1,063,509 3,572 114,931 New Mexico 82,924 85 0 North Carolina. 631,100 30,463 881,059 South Carolina. 291,388 9,914 402,406 Tennessee. 826,782 7,300 275,719 Texas. 421,294 855 182,566 Virginia. 1,047,411 58,042 490,865 ---- --- --- Total 8,182,684 262,008 8,958,696

Immigration in the preceding decade added 2,598,214 to the population, being 1,388,098 from the British Islands, and 1,114,564 from other parts of Europe.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Southern view of Slavery.

The state of opinion and feeling on the subject of slavery to which the people of the southern states had arrived in 1860 is set forth with brevity and distinctness in Claiborne's Life of General Quitman, which was published that year: "In the early stages of African slavery in the South," says the writer, "it was by many considered an evil, that had been inflicted upon the country by British and New England cupidity. The Africans were regarded as barbarians, and were governed by the lash. The very hatred of the 'evil' forced upon us was, in a measure, transferred to the unhappy victims. They were treated with severity, and no social relations subsisted between them and the whites. By degrees slavery began to be considered 'a necessary evil,' to be got rid of by gradual emancipation, or perhaps not at all, and the condition of the slave sensibly improved. The natural sense of justice in the human heart suggested that they had been brought here by compulsion, and that they should be regarded not as savages, but as captives, who were to be kindly treated while laboring for their ultimate redemption. The progress of anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern States (once regarded by the South as a harmless fanaticism), the excesses it has occasioned, and the unconstitutional power it claims, at length prompted a general and searching inquiry into the true status of the negro. The moment that the Southern mind became convinced, that slavery, as it exists among us, instead of being a moral, social, and political evil, is a moral, social, and political good, and is the natural condition of the negro, as ordained by Providence, and the only condition in which he can be civilized and instructed, the condition of the Southern slave underwent a thorough change. As a permanent fixture, as a hereditary heirloom, as a human being with an immortal soul, intrusted to us by God for his own wise purposes, his value increased, and his relation to his owner approximated to the relation of guardian and ward. Interest taught us that it would be wise to cherish what was to be the permanent means of production and profit, and religion exacted the humane and judicious employment of the 'talent' committed to our care. Thus the most powerful influences that sway the heart and the judgment are in operation for the benefit of the slave, and hence his present comfortable and constantly ameliorating condition. It is due, almost solely, to the moral convictions of the slaveholder. Our laws protect the slave in life and limb, and against cruel and inordinate punishment. Those laws are rigorously applied, though rarely necessary, for public opinion, more formidable than law, would condemn to execration and infamy the unjust and cruel master. Since these convictions in regard to slavery have been adopted almost unanimously in the South, the value of negroes has quadrupled. This, however, is in some measure an evil, because the tendency is to concentrate the slaves in the hands of the few, who are able to pay the extraordinary rates now demanded. It would be better for the commonwealth, and give additional solidity to our system of domestic servitude, if every family had an interest in it, secured, to a limited extent, against liability for debt. It should constitute in the South, if practicable, a part of every homestead, and then interest, and household tradition, and the friendly, confidential, and even affectionate relations that in the present state of public feeling prevail between master and slave, would unite all men in its defense. Neither land, nor slaves, which are here more valuable than land, should, by either direct or indirect legislation, be concentrated in few hands. Every citizen should have, if possible, that immediate interest in them which would make him feel that, in defending the commonwealth and its institutions, he is defending his own inheritance."

_J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, volume 1, chapter 4._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (April-November). Nineteenth Presidential Election. Division of the Democratic Party. Four candidates in the field. A victory for freedom in the choice of Abraham Lincoln.