Part 1

Produced by Jeannie Howse, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.)

A Letter from John Brown never before in print.

Now in the possession of Sullivan Forehand, Esq., of Worcester.

SPRINGFIELD, MASS, 16TH APRIL, 1857. Hon. Eli Thayer, My Dear Sir

I am advised that one of "U.S. Hounds is on my track"; & I have kept myself hid for a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of being taken; _& intend_ (_if_ "God will";) to go back with Irons _in_ rather than _upon_ my hands. Now my Dear Sir let me ask you to have Mr. Allen & Co. send me by Express; one or two sample Navy Sized Revolvers; _as soon as may be_; together with his best cash terms (he warranting them) by the hundred with good moulds, flasks; &c. I wish the sample Pistols sent to John (not Capt) Brown Care of Massasoit House Springfield, Mass. I now enclose Twenty Dollars towards repairs done for me; & Revolvers; the balance _I will send_, as soon as I get the Bill. I have written to have Dr. Howe send you by Express a Rifle and Two Pistols; which _with the guns you gave me; & fixings; together_ with the Rifle given me by _Mr. Allen & Co._ I wish them to pack in a suitable strong Box; _perfectly safe_ directing to _J.B._ care of Orson M. Oviatt Esq. Cleveland Ohio; _as freight_; to keep dry. For Box, trouble; & packing; I will pay when I get bill. I wish the box very plainly marked; & forwarded to Cleveland; as soon as you receive the articles from Dr. Howe. I got a _fine list_ in Boston the other day; & hope Worcester will not be _entirely behind_. I do no mean _you; or Mr. Allen & Co._

Very Respectfully Your Friend

Direct all letters and bills } to care of Massasoit House } (signed) John Brown _Please acknowledge_ }

JOHN BROWN: A RETROSPECT.

BY ALFRED S. ROE.

Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884.

WORCESTER, MASS.: PRIVATE PRESS OF FRANKLIN P. RICE. MDCCCLXXXV.

JOHN BROWN: A RETROSPECT.

Nearly two thousand years ago, at the hour of noon, a motley throng of people might have been seen pouring forth from the gates of a far Eastern city and moving towards a hill called Calvary. Amidst soldiers and civilians, both friends and foes, the central figure is that of a man scarcely more than thirty years of age. He has all the attributes, in form and features, of true manliness. A disinterested judge has just declared that he finds nothing amiss in him; but the rabble cry out, all the more, "crucify him." While ardently loved by a devoted few in that tumultuous crowd, he is, to all the rest, an object of severest scorn, the butt of ribald jest. Wearing his crown of thorns, he is made to bear, till he faints under his burden, the very instrument of his torture. His Roman executioners, giving to him the punishment accorded to thieves and robbers, have imposed upon him the ignominious fate possible,--death upon the cross.

A century before, Cicero had said: "It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is an atrocious crime; to put him to death is almost parricide; but to _crucify_ him--what shall I call it?"

The place of crucifixion is reached. The dread tragedy is enacted. The vail of the Temple is rent in twain; but upon the trembling earth the cross stands firm; from the consequent darkness it shines forth, resplendent by the halo of its precious burden. The Saviour of men is taken thence to lie in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea; his disciples and brethren wander away disconsolate; his tormentors go their many and devious ways; but the cross remains. It will ever remain; the object of reproach and derision to the ancients, to the moderns it has become the symbol of all that is true and good. The scenes of that day, on which the son of man was lifted up have sanctified for all time the instrument on which he suffered; transformed and radiant, it has become a beacon for all mankind.

Twenty-five years ago to-day, at noon, nearly, another crowd took its course from prison doors to a place of execution. We see a white haired old man escorted to his death by all the military strength that a great state can command. As he leaves his place of confinement he stoops and prints a kiss upon the face of a Negro baby. A black woman cries out to him, passing along, "God bless you, old man; I wish I could help you, but I cannot." The most ignominious death known to our laws awaits him. Already has the gibbet been erected. The sticks "standant and crossant" are in place, and the hungry rope is "pendant." A forty acre field is filled with those drawn together by this strange scene. Three thousand soldiers with loaded guns stand ready to repel any attempt at rescue. Well shotted cannon turn their open and angry mouths upon this one poor mortal. The bravest man there, he gazes upon the array before him, without a trace of emotion. The eye that shed tears at the sight of human misery is undimmed by what man can do against him. Beyond the cordon of foes he remarks the wonderful beauty of the scenery, the last he is to look upon. He has made his peace with God and has no other favor to ask of his executioners than that they hasten their terrible task. The drop falls and suspended 'twixt Heaven and Earth is the incarnation of the idea that in a few brief months is to bring liberty to an enslaved race. Most appropriately did a Boston clergyman on the following Sunday announce for his opening hymn--

"Servant of God, well done!"

The John the Baptist of salvation to the Negroes, he died a death excelled in sublimity only by that of the Saviour of men. Both died for men; one, for all mankind, the other willing to risk all that he might open the prison door to those confined, and to strike off the bands of those in bondage.

And here, too, methinks a strange transformation has taken place. The rough, the terrible gallows loses its accustomed significance. Its old time uses are forgotten. Around it I see millions of men and women pointing to its sole occupant, saying, "He died that we might live." Even the scaffold may become a monument of glory, for from it a hero and a martyr passed to his reward. I forget the base and criminal burdens it has borne, and see only the "lifting up" of one man who had courage equal to his convictions. His martyrdom came ere he had seen

"The Glory of the Coming of the Lord."

Under the lofty Adirondacks his body was mouldering in the grave when Lincoln proclaimed liberty to the slave,

"But his soul was marching on."

During the twenty-five years intervening since the death of John Brown, the Drama of Life has been played with far more than the usual variation. In no equal space of time since the recording of events began, have more pages of history been turned than during the quarter of a century just closing. Owing to the efforts of Brown and others sympathizing with him, the Institution of Slavery had already received many shocks; but it was still active and aggressive. For ought man could see to the contrary, it was fated to exist many years yet. It held unchallenged, fifteen of the states in this Union and was making strenuous efforts to fortify itself in the territories of the West. A bishop in the freedom-loving state of Vermont was, twenty-five years ago, finding scripture argument for the maintenance of Negro slavery. Across the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire, the head of her chief educational institution was teaching the young men under his care that slavery was of Divine origin, and, of course, as such must not be disturbed. In New York City, one of her foremost lawyers, Charles O'Conor, announced to his audience that Negro slavery not only was not unjust, "But it is just, wise and beneficent." Though there was disclaim at this statement, the vast majority of his immense throng of listeners applauded the sentiment to the echo. In our own Commonwealth, a human being had just been rendered back to slavery, and the most distinguished clergyman in Massachusetts had stood a trial for endeavoring to prevent the everlasting disgrace. In those days between "Fifty and Sixty," "Uncle Tom's Cabin" meant something. Its gifted author had set before every Northern reader a picture on which he could not look without blushing. Nearly all of us, here to-night, can recall the intense interest with which our parents perused the book. I well recall the burning face of my father as he turned page after page, and when, at times, tears coursed down his cheek I wondered what it was all about. He, too, had occasion to know how strong was the bond that slavery had laid upon the Nation, in the opposition aroused among his own people through his pulpit utterances on the forbidden subject. In those days, the Underground Railroad was in full operation. The Southern Black Man, however deep his degradation, knew the North Star, and towards it he was journeying at the rate of thousands yearly. We of to-day account it among our most precious heritages that our sires and grandsires kept stations on that same road, and many an escaped bondsman looking back from his safe asylum in Canada called them "blessed." Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine was in the halcyon days of "Fugitive Slave Law" lovers. If John Wesley considered Slavery the "sum of all villainies," I wonder what terse definition he would have given to this the vilest enactment that ever rested on our Statute Book. Not satisfied with whipping, shooting, hanging, destroying in a thousand ways these unhappy slaves, the aggressive South forced upon a passive North a law whose enormity passes description. Every man at the beck of the Southern kidnapper, by its provisions was obliged to play the part of a Negro catcher. So great was the passiveness of the North that her most eminent orator, instead of decrying the proposition as unworthy of humanity, even lifted up his voice in its defense. Virgil inveighed against the accursed thirst for gold--_auri sacra fames_; but it was not this thirst that made him, ofttimes called the "Godlike," turn against all the traditions of his birth and associations, and speak words which closed to him Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty, and drew from Whittier the scathing lines of

"Ichabod!"

But his thirst was not appeased, and the South before which he had prostrated himself, turned away from him, spurning his bribe, and made a nomination which terribly disappointed Webster, and on account of which he went down to his grave broken hearted. Imagine if you can the astonishment of the student a hundred years hence, when he reads that the highest judicial tribunal in the land, voiced through its aged though not venerable chief, said in the year of our lord, 1857, and in the year of American Independence the eighty-first, that three millions of people, at that time represented in Congress through an infamous scheme of apportionment, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect. Two judges of that court, and be it ever remembered to their credit, dissented. Through the worse than Cimmerian darkness that overspread the Supreme Bench of those days, the names of McLean and Curtis shine forth, the only rays of light; and I may say with the exception of that of Taney, remembered through his unique position, the only names recalled to-day. I doubt whether any present can name three out of the six judges who concurred with their Superior in his opinion. It was the age, _par excellence_, of spread-eagle oratory, when the American Bird soared higher and staid up longer than he ever has since. Hail Columbias and Star Spangled Banners were in order, but the latter waved for the white portion of the people only. A flaunting mockery, our flag justly merited the reproach of other nations that pointed to our enslaved millions and then said: "Call ye that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?"

We know that all this is so, for we remember it; but the student of the future must get his knowledge from books, and in the light of progress what will he think of defenseless women being mobbed in a Connecticut town for allowing Negro girls to attend their school? Even now there is no distinction of color in _our_ schools, and at the High School in this city, a colored girl has graduated whose foster father was a slave in Danville, Virginia, while the head master of the school was held there a prisoner of war. Side by side they sit in our schools of all grades, and, graduating from our Normal Schools, become teachers in the schools themselves. He will read that Garrison, Phillips, Foster and others, were often in peril of their lives for preaching liberation of the slaves; and how like a myth will it seem to _him_, when _we_, in twenty-five years from the death of John Brown, have seen colored men in both branches of the National Legislature, and to-day cannot look upon a lately issued Government Note without reading the name of one[A] who was once in bondage. Popular prejudice, the strongest barrier possible, is rapidly yielding; and the bayonet, the ballot and the spelling book, have wrought wonders. With all professions open to the colored man, with equal rights before the law, with millions of property accumulated since the war, who shall say that the soul of John Brown is not marching on?

In the days prior to those of Harper's Ferry Raid, this good City of Worcester, and the County of the same name, had spoken in no uncertain manner as to their appreciation of Slavery and its attendant evils. The first county in the Commonwealth to raise the question of the validity of Slavery in Massachusetts subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, she well sustained her early acquired reputation in the more troublous times of later years. In 1839, in this city was tried the famous Holden Slave Case, where a native of Worcester County had brought to her early home from her more recent Southern one, a specimen of human property in the shape of a black girl fourteen years old, by name Anne. By special enactment of Massachusetts no one could be held in bondage thus unless perfectly willing, and certain citizens of Holden, knowing that the treatment which the girl received could not be borne except under duress, secured her person, and bringing her to the Heart of the Commonwealth, made her "Free indeed." For thus acting, these citizens were arrested and indicted, for just what, it seems difficult, at this time, to state; but they were deemed or called culpable for having, without her consent, taken this girl, Anne, from bondage and actually giving her liberty. More than fifty years ago this, and how like a dream the whole matter seems. Ira Barton was the Justice of the Peace before whom one of the depositions was made. Solomon Strong, the earliest appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the Judge who heard the case. Pliny Merrick was the District Attorney who conducted the prosecution, and Charles Allen the Attorney who appeared for the defense. The trial had not advanced a great ways ere Mr. Merrick declared that there was no cause of action, and the jury at once acquitted the defendants. Charles Allen! A host of recollections of the Free Soil and Anti-Slavery days spring into being at the mention of his name. He was the Massachusetts Whig who, in 1848, refused to bow the knee to the Southern Baal, and to his fellow members of the Convention, after the nomination of General Taylor dared to say: "You have put one ounce too much on the strong back of Northern endurance. You have even presumed that the State which led on the first Revolution for Liberty will now desert that cause for the miserable boon of the vice-presidency. Sir, _Massachusetts spurns the bribe_," referring thus to the proposed nomination of Abbott Lawrence. It was a brother of Charles Allen our late esteemed friend, the Rev. George Allen, who in the same year offered to a meeting in Worcester, the most famous resolution of the whole ante-bellum period. Catching the spirit of his brother's words, he said: "Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains and _spurns all bribes_; that Massachusetts now, and will ever go, for free soil and free men, for free lips and a free press, for a free land and a free world." This was a good key-note, and when, six years later, in 1854 a slave-catcher came to this same city of Worcester, the citizens proved that they could raise the tune most readily; and the would-be man-stealer was only too happy to march to its measures out of the city, without his booty, and possessed of a whole skin. Mr. Jankins, the object of Butman, the kidnapper's cupidity, during these intervening thirty years, has continued to live in this city, a respectable and respected citizen; and has seen his children in the highest schools of the city. One, having graduated from the High School, is now in the Normal School. What a comment this, on the times when, in this _Christian_ land, men and women were imprisoned for teaching black people how to read,--the Bible even.

I doubt whether the people of Worcester were the very strictest interpreters of the law in the days when the life of John Brown was in the balance. Of the technicalities of his offence it is not ours to judge. The people of the North who had made haste to rid themselves of slavery, had viewed for years the aggressive unrest of the South. While civilized countries other than ours had forever abolished the wretched system, our country, led by its Southern minority, had again and again done its best to bolster and uphold it. The war with Mexico, the annexation of Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, were only successive sops thrown to the insatiable monster. The repeal of the Compromise opened the Territory of Kansas to both Slavery and Anti-Slavery, and henceforth Massachusetts speaks with no uncertain voice. John Brown and Charles Sumner simultaneously spring into renown and immortality. Both of Bay State antecedents, their history is largely hers. One on the plains of Kansas fights for what he believes to be the right. His own blood and that of his sons flow in behalf of oppressed humanity. Border ruffians are driven back and a Free State Constitution adopted. Sumner, from his place in the United Sates Senate, boldly proclaims his sentiments on "The Crime against Kansas," and by an illustrious scion of the Southern aristocracy is stricken down in a manner which "even thieves and cut-throats would despise." The contest was on,--any pause thereafter was only a temporary lull. In the language of New York's most distinguished Senator, it was "Irrepressible." John Brown had repeatedly led parties of slaves from Missouri to Kansas, and made of them free men. He contemplated other and grander strokes against the peculiar institution. In his singleness of purposes, he saw not the power of the Government intervening, and perhaps, in his intensity, it would have made no difference if he had. Certain, however, is the statement, that the one grand idea over-towering all others in his mind, was that of liberty for the slaves; and for that idea men of his own and subsequent days have done him reverence.