Читать книгу John Brown, Soldier of Fortune: A Critique - Hill Peebles Wilson - Страница 7

New Hartford, 12th June, 1839.

My Dear Wife and Children:

I write to let you know that I am in comfortable health, and that I expect to be on my way home in the course of a week should nothing befall me. If I am longer detained I will write you again. The cattle business has succeeded about as I expected, but I am now somewhat in fear that I shall fail in getting the money I expected on the loan. Should that be the will of Providence I know of no other way but we must consider ourselves very poor for our debts must be paid, if paid at a sacrifice. Should that happen (though it may not) I hope God who is rich in mercy, will grant us all grace to conform to our circumstances with cheerfulness and resignation. I want to see each of my dear family very much but must wait God's time. Try all of you to do the best you can, and do not one of you be discouraged—tomorrow may be a much brighter day. Cease not to ask God's blessing on yourselves and me. Keep this letter wholly to yourselves, excepting that I expect to start home soon, and that I did not write confidently about my success should any one enquire. Edmond is well and Owen Mills. You may show this to father but to no one else.

I am not without great hopes of getting relief, I would not have you understand, but things have looked more unfavorable for a few days. I think I shall write you again before I start.

Earnestly commending every one of you to God, and to his mercy, which endureth forever, I remain your affectionate husband and father,

John Brown.

This beautiful letter, written to his wife in relation to the prosecution of a criminal design, stands as a study of John Brown which the student may well contemplate with profit. It is written in the attractive style, and in the spiritual language characteristic of Brown's correspondence. It is strikingly similar to the letters that he gave out from the Charlestown jail, which, in their apparently devotional simplicity, and humble sincerity and trust in the mercy of God, won for him there his "victory over death." This letter was a dissimulation, the proof of which lies in the consummation of the negotiations for the money; and in the appropriation of it to his own use, at a time when he was hopelessly involved. It is a real key to the history of his life; it discloses his true character, and shatters to fragments every hypothesis that Brown was either sincere, devout, or honest.

"Three days after the receipt of this letter," Mr. Villard relates, "Brown received from the New England Woolen Company at Rockville, Conn., twenty-eight hundred dollars, through its agent George Kellogg, for the purchase of wool, which money, regretfully enough, he pledged for his own benefit and was then unable to redeem. Fortunately for him the Company exercised leniency toward him."[25] Later it permitted him to go through bankruptcy, upon the condition that he would endeavor to repay the money. Brown's letter in acknowledgment of the "great kindness" to him therein, is as follows:[26]

Richfield, Octo. 17, 1842.

Whereas I, John Brown, on or about the 15th day of June 1839, received from the New England Company (through their Agent George Kellogg, Esq.) the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars for the purchase of wool for said Company, and imprudently pledged the same for my own benefit, and could not redeem it; and whereas I have been legally discharged from my obligations by the laws of the United States—I hereby agree in consideration of the great kindness and tenderness of said Company toward me in my calamity, and more particularly of the moral obligation I am under to render them their due, to pay the same and interest thereon, from time to time, as Divine Providence shall enable me to do. Witness my hand and seal.

John Brown.

To Mr. Kellogg, agent for the woolen company, he wrote:

Richfield, Summit County, Ohio, Octo. 17, 1842.

George Kellogg, Esq.

Dear Sir—I have just received information of my final discharge as a bankrupt in the District Court, and I ought to be grateful that no one of my creditors has made any opposition to such discharge being given. I shall now if my life is continued, have an opportunity of proving the sincerity of my past professions, when legally free to act as I choose. I am sorry to say that in consequence of the unforeseen expense of getting the discharge, the loss of an ox, and the destitute condition in which a new surrender of my effects has placed me, with my numerous family, I fear this year must pass without my effecting in the way of payment what I have encouraged you to expect (notwithstanding I have been generally prosperous in my business for the season).

Respectfully your unworthy friend,

John Brown.

To Mr. Villard the public owes its obligation for the quite complete history of this transaction. Mr. Sanborn, in his record of it, saw fit to suppress the letter of June 12, 1839. He, evidently, garbled the correspondence relating to this criminal incident in Brown's life, with the intention of practicing a deception upon the public. Commenting upon the two letters of October 17, 1842, he said:[27]

These papers show the real integrity of Brown, in a transaction in which he might have escaped the obligation which he thus assumed.

That Brown promised restitution of the money herein, as a means to forestall criminal proceedings against him; and gave the above acknowledgment of the debt, and renewed promise to pay, as a condition precedent to being permitted to go into the court of bankruptcy, is evident from the two preceding letters. It is also apparent from his letter to Mr. Kellogg, that he did not intend to fulfill the promises he had made. At his death, "this debt, like many others, was still unpaid," notwithstanding the fact that two years after his proceedings in bankruptcy he became prosperous, "with the most trying financial periods of his life behind him."[28]

With money in his pocket wherewith to commence life anew, Brown conceived the idea of leaving that part of the country and settling in Virginia, upon land[29] belonging to Oberlin College. He probably obtained information concerning the land from his father, who was a trustee of the college. On April 1, 1840, he appeared before a committee of the trustees, and opened negotiations with it for an agreement to survey the Virginia land, and to purchase some of it. Two days later he submitted a proposal "to visit, survey and make the necessary investigation respecting the boundaries, etc. of these lands, for one dollar per day, and a modest allowance for necessary expenses." He also stated that this was to be a preliminary step towards locating thereon, with his family, "should the opening prove a favorable one," and in the event of his so locating, he was to receive one thousand acres of the land. The trustees promptly accepted his offer, and the treasurer was ordered to furnish him with "a Commission and Needful outfit,"[30] which was done the same day. He immediately proceeded to Virginia and entered upon his duties. April 27th he wrote to his wife from Ripley, Virginia:

I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Providence, I hope one day to live with my family.

July 14, 1840, he filed his report, and on August 11th he was notified that the prudential committee of the trustees had been authorized by the board to "perfect negotiations, and convey to Brother John Brown, of Hudson, Ohio, one thousand acres of our Virginia land, on conditions suggested in the correspondence between him and the committee." Replying to the letter January 2, 1841, he wrote:

… I feel prepared to say definitely that I expect, Providence willing, to accept the proposal of your Board. … I shall expect to receive a thousand acres of land in a body, that will include a living spring of water discharging itself at a height sufficient to accommodate a tannery as I shall expect to pursue that business on a small scale if I go. …

The trustees meanwhile, for reasons which have not been made public, changed their minds on the subject, and Brown's letter to their Mr. Burnell of February 5, 1841, reaffirming his intention to accept the land, as proposed, was never answered.[31]

Failing in his effort to establish himself in Virginia, he engaged in the sheep raising industry, in the spring of 1841, in company with Captain Oviatt, at Richfield, Ohio. He was successful and "gradually became known as a winner of prizes for sheep, and cattle at the annual fairs, in Summit County." By 1844 he had gained the reputation of a successful wool grower, and in that year formed "a partner-ship with Simon Perkins, Jr. of Akron, Ohio, with a view to carry on the sheep business extensively."[32] He moved to Akron April 10th of that year. Concerning his home at Akron, Mr. Villard says:

They occupied a cottage on what is still known as Perkins Hill, near Simon Perkins own home, with an extensive and charming view over hill and dale—an ideal sheep country, and a location which must have attracted any one save a predisposed wanderer.

Two years later it was decided to establish a headquarters at Springfield, Massachusetts. There Brown went "to reside as one of the firm of Perkins and Brown, agents of the sheep-farmers and wool merchants in northern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, whose interests then required an agency to stand between them and the wool manufacturers of New England, to whom they sold their fleeces."[33]

Of this arrangement Mr. Villard says on page 35: "John Brown was within bounds in thus exulting; even though the Perkins partner-ship resulted eventually in severe losses and dissolution. At least it was a connection with a high minded and prosperous man, and it lasted ten years. When it was over, the partners were still friends, but Mr. Perkins did not retain a high opinion of John Brown's ability or sagacity as a business man." Mr. Sanborn states on page 57, that when Mr. Perkins was questioned by him, in 1878, about Brown's wool growing and wool dealing, he replied: "The less you can say about them the better."

As to the business, there seems to have been trouble from the commencement of it. Mr. Villard says on page 60: "Moreover some customers had just grievances, for the letter book contains far too many apologies for failure to acknowledge letters and shipments, and to make out accurate accounts, for so young a firm."

In August, 1849, Brown made his historic trip to London to superintend, personally, the sale of wool, which he had shipped to that market, because he could not obtain prices that were satisfactory to him from the manufacturers of woolens in his home market. The amount of wool so consigned was about two hundred thousand pounds. The Northampton Woolen Mills Company of Northampton, Massachusetts, had bid sixty cents a pound for this wool at Springfield. In London, September 17th, a lot of one hundred and fifty bales of it was sold for twenty-six to twenty-nine cents per pound. The buyer was the "Northampton Woolen Mills Co., of Mass., U. S. A."[34] Brown returned home in October "bringing back with him the portion of the wool which he had been unable to sell. The loss on this venture was probably as high as $40,000."[35] The firm of Perkins and Brown then began proceedings in liquidation, which had been under consideration for some time before Brown made the trip to Europe. The losses sustained by the company were upon a large scale. Suits against them were brought for more than one hundred thousand dollars.[36]

In 1850 Brown contemplated engaging in the manufacture of wine upon a large scale; and on December 4th, wrote to his sons to send him some samples of the wines they had made. He said: "I want Jason to obtain from Mr. Perkins, or anywhere he can get them, two good Junk bottles, have them thoroughly cleaned, and filled with cherry wine, being very careful not to roil it up before filling the bottles—providing good corks, and filling them perfectly full. These I want him to pack safely in a very small strong box, which he can make, direct them to Perkins & Brown, Springfield, Mass., and send them by express. We can affect something to purpose by producing unadulterated domestic wines. They will command great prices."[37]

In 1846, Gerrit Smith, a wealthy philanthropist of Peterboro, New York, set aside one hundred and twenty thousand acres of his large estate in northern New York, to be divided up into farms, and given, without charge, to worthy colored people who would settle upon them and improve them for their permanent homes. Brown heard of this proposition in course of time, and made a proposal to Mr. Smith to settle among the negroes on these lands, and aid them by precept and example in their efforts at home building. In consideration of this, it is probable that Brown secured title to some land on equal terms with the negroes, and possibly secured options on other tracts, at satisfactory prices and terms of payment. His experience with the Oberlin College people in relation to the Virginia lands, heretofore referred to, was probably of service to him in this transaction with Smith. The tracts which he selected were at Timbuctoo, or North Elba, and in the spring of 1849 he located his family upon the land; but in March, 1851, moved back to Akron. Brown himself did not go to North Elba to live. His time was taken up in liquidating the tangled affairs of Perkins and Brown, and with the extensive litigation involved in the settlement of them.

Litigation seems to have been a constant and conspicuous feature of Brown's commercial life. Mr. Villard says[38] that "on the records of the Portage County Court of Common Pleas are no less than twenty-one lawsuits in which John Brown figured as defendant during the years 1820 to 1845. Of these, thirteen were actions brought to recover money loaned on promissory notes either to Brown singly or in company with others. The remaining suits were mostly claims for wages, or payments due, or for nonfulfillment of contracts. … In ten other cases he was successfully sued and judgments were obtained against him individually or jointly with others. In three cases those who sued him were non-suited as being without real cause for action, and two other cases were settled out of court. Four cases Brown won, among them being a suit for damages for false arrest and assault and battery, brought by an alleged horse thief, because Brown, and other citizens, had aided a constable in arresting him. A number of these suits grew out of Brown's failure in his real estate speculations. A serious litigation was an action brought by the Bank of Wooster to recover on a Bill of Exchange, drawn by Brown and others, on the Leather Manufacturers Bank of New York, and repudiated by that institution on the ground that Brown and his associates had no money in the bank. During the suit the amount claimed was rapidly reduced, and when the judgment was rendered against him it was for $917.65. … In 1845 Daniel C. Gaylord, who several times had sued Brown, succeeded in compelling him and his associates to convey to him certain Franklin lands, which they had contracted to sell, but the title for which they refused to convey. The court upheld Gaylord's claim. The only case in which Brown figured as plaintiff was settled out of court." This is consistently a bad record.

The year 1854 brought the settlement of Kansas to the front and the wrecked and practically penniless Browns decided to emigrate to the new Territory. Not with the "ax and gun" went they, as will be seen, but with the ax, and with the hope of bettering their condition. The necessity for the gun was developed later—in 1855—and by the Free-State men who had preceded the Browns into the Territory.

It seems the family planned to establish a little colony or group of farms—"Brownsville"—and that while the sons were to be engaged in opening up the farms, the father would try to earn some money in surveying, which would be a very grateful and necessary assistance to them while struggling with the many discouraging incidents which usually befell the impecunious preëmptor. That such were their conclusions appears from a letter which Brown wrote February 13, 1855, to Mr. John W. Cook, of Wolcottville, Connecticut. He said:[39] "Since I saw you I have undertaken to direct the operations of a Surveying & exploring party, to be employed in Kansas for a considerable time perhaps for some Two or Three years; & I lack for time to make all my arrangements, and get on the ground in season." In pursuance of his intention to move to Kansas, he relocated with his family on the North Elba farm.

This review of Brown's career discloses a life spent, thus far, in a series of strenuous struggles with various problems, covering a wide range in the field of commercial activity. All his efforts had ended in disappointment and failure. The removal to North Elba marks his retirement, in defeat, from the world of trade, and finds him, as the result of his failures, living with his dependent family upon a small tract of mountain land, of little value, that had been given to him as a condition of his settlement thereon. They had "moved into an unplastered four-room house, the rudest kind of a pioneer home, built for him by his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, who had married his daughter Ruth."[40]

What Brown's religious belief was is problematical. He was a student of the Bible, and, as he said, "possessed a most unusual memory of its entire contents." The Book, as a whole, was his creed, and upon its teachings he placed his personal interpretations. He spoke and wrote, when he so desired, in its phraseology; and by this distinction, in contradiction of the character of his actions, he gained a reputation for being a Christian. He may have been a Presbyterian, as has been said; or he may have been a Methodist, as has also been stated; and there is equal authority for the statement that he belonged to the Congregational church; but, it would seem that if he had been a consistent member of any of these churches, his historic name would have been proudly borne upon the rolls of membership, in the congregations to which he belonged; and the fact of his membership therein clearly established. It would further seem that he would have stated the fact of such membership in connection with what he did say, in 1857, in relation to his religious experience. It appears however, that while assuming to believe firmly in the divine authenticity of the Bible, he had become only to "some extent a convert to Christianity." There is no evidence that he ever attended public worship in Kansas, or at any place during the latter years of his life, or that he engaged in prayer. Also, it would seem, that if he had been "a student at Morris Academy" in either 1816 or 1819, as a preparation for college—Amherst—with an ultimate purpose so creditable as "entering the ministry," he would have referred to the fact, incidentally at least, in his Autobiography, which treats specifically of his education.[41]

The Rev. H. D. King of Kinsman, Ohio, met Brown frequently at Tabor, Iowa, during August and September, 1857. He probably regarded him as an infidel, but did not wish to say so. "He was rather skeptical, I think," he said; "not an infidel, but not bound by creeds. He was somewhat cranky on the subject of the Bible as he was on that of killing people."[42] In the last letter which Brown wrote to his family, November 30, 1859, two days before his execution, he said:[43]

I must yet insert the reason for my firm belief in the Bible, notwithstanding I am, perhaps, naturally skeptical—certainly not credulous. … It is the purity of heart, filling our minds as well as work and actions, which is everywhere insisted on, that distinguishes it from all other teachings, that commends it to my conscience. …

The late Mr. George B. Gill of Kansas, who was a member of Brown's cabinet—secretary of the treasury—said of him: "He was very human. The angel wing's were so dim and shadowy as to be almost unseen."

Brown's younger sons were infidels. They had "discovered the Bible to be all fiction."[44] To the Sabbath day and its sanctity, he was indifferent. In violation of the stricter conventions, which prevailed at that time, concerning the observance of it as "Holy unto the Lord," he committed the principal crimes incident to his career, wholly or in part, on the Sabbath. A part of the murders and thefts on the Pottawatomie were committed on Sunday morning, May 25, 1856. Returning to Kansas from Nebraska City (August 9th and 10th) half the journey was made on Sunday, August 10th. "On August 24," 1856 (Sunday), "the Brown and Cline companies set out for the South, marching eight miles and camping on Sugar Creek."[45] Sunday night, October 16, 1859, was the time fixed for the insurrection of the slaves to occur, and on that night, in pursuance of his plans, he occupied Harper's Ferry.

Brown was averse to military operations, and military affairs. He refused to drill with the local militia, paying the fines instead, which were imposed by law for such delinquencies. In political matters he affiliated with the Abolitionists, or with those of the party who were "non-resistants."[46]

The statements which have been put forth in support of the assumption that Brown's life was a devotion to the Anti-Slavery cause—a series of abnormal activities in opposition to slavery—are not confirmed, nor can they be justified by any contemporaneous evidence. For notwithstanding the persistent, if not offensive, insistence of his biographers to the contrary; and the pages without number which have been written in support of such insistence, the record of his life is practically barren in relation to the subject. There is not a scrap of concurrent evidence which, even remotely, suggests that prior to 1855 he might have taken more than a most ordinary interest in securing freedom for the slaves. Even in his letter of that year to Mr. John W. Cook (note 40), informing him of his intention to go to Kansas, and of his motive for going thereto, he made no reference to the subject whatever. A statement of everything which Brown did, or that he attempted to do up to that year, in opposition to slavery, may be republished in this book without encumbering its pages. It will therefore be given.

In 1857, after Brown had ceased to be a non-resistant, and was in the East professionally advocating war in Kansas; he wrote that during the late war with England an incident "occurred that made him a most determined Abolitionist: & led him to declare or Swear: Eternal war with Slavery." But Mr. Villard, having the infant Pardigles prodigy in mind, makes the point that "the oaths of a lad of such tender years do not often become the guiding force of maturity." A Mr. Blakesley, with whom Brown, before his marriage, kept bachelor's hall, relates that one evening a runaway slave came to their door, and asked for food, which was given him freely. John Brown, Jr., relates the same, or a similar, incident as occurring eight years later. The dramatic settings in each case are practically similar: Night! Sound of horses' feet approaching! Flight of fugitive, or fugitives, into the adjacent timber! False alarm! Subsequent search for, and locating of the fugitive "by the sound of the beating of his heart!" Finale: "Brown swears eternal enmity to slavery!"[47] Both of the tales are of the legendary type common to Brown literature. Mr. Blakesley's story is probably in part true, but whether either of them, or both of them, be true is without significance. It would indeed have been difficult to find a person living in the North at that time, who would have refused a poor fugitive slave the measure of assistance asked for in this case.

On another occasion Brown is represented as taking the members of his family into his confidence, and enlisting them for life in the "eternal war" which he is said to have been personally waging; taking the precaution to swear them to secrecy. Jason Brown states that they were "merely sworn to do all in their power to abolish slavery," and does not use the word "force."[48] But as related by John Brown, Jr., the occasion was much more dramatic and far reaching. He says:[49]

It is, of course, impossible for me to say when such idea and plan first entered his (John Brown's) mind and became a purpose; but I can say with certainty that he first informed his family that he entertained such purpose while we were yet living in Franklin, O. (now called Kent), and before he went to Virginia, in 1840, to survey the lands which had been donated by Arthur Tappan to Oberlin College; and this was certainly as early as 1839. The place and the circumstances where he first informed us of that purpose are as perfectly in my memory as any other event in my life. Father, mother, Jason, Owen and I were, late in the evening, seated around the fire in the open fire-place of the kitchen, in the old Haymaker house where we then lived; and there he first informed us of his determination to make war on slavery—not such war as Mr. Garrison informs us "was equally the purpose of the non-resistant abolitionists," but war by force and arms. He said that he had long entertained such a purpose—that he believed it his duty to devote his life, if need be, to this object, which he made us fully to understand. After spending considerable time in setting forth in most impressive language the hopeless condition of the slave, he asked who of us were willing to make common cause with him in doing all in our power to "break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of his teeth," naming each of us in succession. Are you, Mary, John, Jason, and Owen? Receiving an affirmative answer from each, he kneeled in prayer, and all did the same. This posture in prayer impressed me greatly as it was the first time I had ever known him to assume it. After prayer he asked us to raise our right hands, and he then administered to us an oath, the exact terms of which I cannot recall, but in substance it bound us to secrecy and devotion to the purpose of fighting slavery by force and arms to the extent of our ability.

Referring to this incident Mr. Villard says:[50] "It must be noted here that in this letter John Brown, Jr., gives the date of the oath as 1839; in his lengthy affidavit in the case of Gerrit Smith against the Chicago Tribune, he gave the date as 1836, three years earlier, and in an account given in Mr. Sanborn's book he placed it at 1837; three distinct times for the same event. It can, therefore, best be stated as occurring before 1840."

In the opinion of the writer, it could, perhaps, "best be stated" as not having occurred at all. As has been heretofore stated, Brown was at that time a non-resistant, and there is no concurrent evidence that he treasured a thought of using force against slavery until after Robinson suggested it by arming the Free-State men in Kansas in the spring of 1855. The incident may therefore be considered as apocryphal. It is a part of the mass of legendary literature that has overwhelmed Brown's "simple, noble memory."

The improvisation of these two incidents, shows the strait in which John Brown, Jr., was placed, when called upon, by Mr. Sanborn, to narrate some of the incidents occurring in the course of his father's anti-slavery activities. There being none, nothing whatever to tell, he filched the Blakesley incident and related it as one occurring under his personal observation, and put it forth along with the fiction concerning the dramatic function just related, to relieve himself from an embarrassing situation.

In a letter written nearly twenty years after the Blakesley incident is said to have occurred, Brown disclosed the character of the "eternal war" which he really proposed to wage, if any, against slavery. It was to "get at least one negro boy or youth and bring him up as we do our own—give him a good English education, learn him what we can about the history of the world, about business, about general subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God." In the same letter he seeks to interest his brother—Frederick—in a school for blacks which he wanted to open at Randolph. He thought "if the young blacks of our country could once become enlightened, it would most assuredly operate on slavery like firing powder confined in a rock." Incidentally, he intended to own the school, and thought it would pay.[51]

While the suggestion to attack slavery in the manner outlined in this letter is the first recorded movement, or act of aggression, in the much talked of eternal war; and while it may be regarded as a sort of opening gun; though not a loud one, the proposal contained therein may be considered merely as being a commercial venture, for pecuniary profit, that he desired to engage in, rather than as a scheme in negro philanthropy. He thought the venture would be profitable, and offered to divide the profits arising from it with his brother upon terms that "shall be fair." Also it may be stated that at the time he made this proposal he was in the toils of insolvency. Six months later he left Randolph in straitened circumstances. It is therefore probable that he was moved to suggest the opening of a school for blacks by personal considerations, and that but for such reasons the letter containing the proposal would not have been written.

In 1848, while a resident of Springfield, Massachusetts, Brown wrote some articles reflecting upon the negro character; criticising negroes because of their vanity and shiftlessness. They were written under the caption: "Sambo's Mistakes," and were published in the Ram's Horn, a newspaper conducted by negroes, in New York. They do not relate to slavery.[52]

In 1850 he made the first, and, it may be said, the only noticeable effort in behalf of the anti-slavery cause, that is recorded of him prior to 1854. The Fugitive Slave Law, enacted by the Thirty-first Congress, provided for the use of all the forces of the Department of Justice, to effect the arrest of fugitives from slavery, and the restoration of them to their masters. Brown conceived the idea of uniting the free negroes and fugitive slaves in an organization to resist the enforcement of the provisions of this law. The society was to be called "The United States League of Gileadites." The plan failed; the enrollment so far as known was confined to the Springfield, Massachusetts, branch, which numbered fifty-three members.[53] But the activities therein undertaken were strictly defensive in their character; they were not directed against slavery, but for the personal protection of fugitive slaves and free negroes living in the Northern States. His letter of advice to the Gileadites is, in part, as follows:[54]

WORDS OF ADVICE

"Union is Strength"

Nothing so charms the American people as personal bravery. Witness the case of Cinques, of everlasting memory, on board the "Amistad." The trial for life of one bold and to some extent successful man, for defending his rights in good earnest, would arouse more sympathy throughout the nation than the accumulated wrongs and sufferings of more than three millions of our submissive colored population. We need not mention the Greeks struggling against the oppressive Turks, the Poles against Russia, nor the Hungarians against Austria and Russia combined, to prove this. No jury can be found in the Northern States that would convict a man for defending his rights to the last extremity. This is well understood by Southern Congressmen, who insisted that the right of trial by jury should not be granted to the fugitive. Colored people have ten times the number of fast friends among the whites than they suppose, and would have ten times the number they now have were they but half as much in earnest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and extravagances of their luxury. Just think of the money expended by individuals in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think of the number who have been mobbed and imprisoned on your account! Have any of you seen the Branded Hand? Do you remember the names of Lovejoy and Torrey?

Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together as quickly as possible, so as to outnumber your adversaries who are taking an active part against you. Let no able-bodied man appear on the ground unequipped, or with his weapons exposed to view; let that be understood beforehand. Your plans must be known only to yourself, and with the understanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to be guilty. "Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead" (Judges, vii. 3; Deut. xx. 8). Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on condition of holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you are ready; you will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first blow be the signal for all to engage; and when engaged do not do your work by halves, but make clean work with your enemies, and be sure you meddle not with any others. By going about your business quietly, you will get the job disposed of before the number that an uproar would bring together can collect; and you will have the advantage of those who come out against you, for they will be wholly unprepared with either equipments or matured plans; all with them will be confusion and terror. Your enemies will be slow to attack you after you have done up the work nicely; and if they should, they will have to encounter your white friends as well as you; for you may safely calculate on a division of the whites, and may by that means get to an honorable parley.

Be firm, determined, and cool; but let it be understood that you are not to be driven to desperation without making it an awful dear job to others as well as to you. …

A lasso might possibly be applied to a slave-catcher for once with good effect. Hold on to your weapons, and never be persuaded to leave them, part with them, or have them far away from you. Stand by one another and by your friends, while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school. Make no confession.

In a letter to his wife, January 17, 1851, relating to the same subject, he said:[55]

Dear Wife … Since the sending off to slavery of Long from New York, I have improved my leisure hours quite busily with colored people here, in advising them how to act, and in giving them all the encouragement in my power. They very much need encouragement and advice; and some of them are so alarmed that they tell me they cannot sleep on account of either themselves or their wives and children. I can only say I think I have been enabled to do something to revive their broken spirits. I want all my family to imagine themselves in the same dreadful condition. My only spare time being taken up (often until late hours at night) in the way I speak of, have prevented me from the gloomy homesick feelings which had before so much oppressed me: not that I forget my family at all.

The assumption that Brown, "The peaceful tanner and shepherd," had at this time been transformed "into a man burning to use arms upon an institution which refused to yield to peaceful agitation,"[56] is not justified by anything that he had theretofore said or done relating to slavery; neither is it justified by what he wrote to the "Gileadites," nor by the letter which he wrote to his wife concerning the condition of the free negroes. These papers contain no hint, to say nothing of evidence, that the action taken therein by him was the result of any preconceived intention to attack slavery; or that it was related to any general plan or purpose to oppose slavery; or that it foreshadowed any disposition on his part, burning or otherwise, to engage in the matter any further than by counsel and advice. The letter to his wife reflects the general sense of compassion that was felt for the negroes, by all humane people throughout the North, because of the distressful condition in which they were placed by the terms of the Fugitive Slave Law.

The foregoing is a recital of all that is contained in the record of Brown's life concerning his anti-slavery activities up to the year 1852. In the working of that great engine for emancipation, the Underground Railway, he took no part. Of the more than seventy-five thousand slaves who were carried from bondage to freedom by the self-sacrificing agencies of the system, Brown, it is said, gave shelter and a meal to but one of them. The late Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, militant clergyman and abolitionist, in a eulogy upon Brown, said:[57]

… It had been my privilege to live in the best society all my life—namely that of abolitionists and fugitive slaves. I had seen the most eminent persons of the age: several on whose heads tens of thousands of dollars had been set; a black woman, who, after escaping from slavery herself, had gone back secretly eight times into the jaws of death to bring out persons whom she had never seen; and a white man, who after assisting away fugitives by the thousand, had twice been stripped of every dollar of his property in fines, and when taunted by the Court, had mildly said, "Friend if thee knows any poor fugitive in need of a breakfast, send him to Thomas Garrett's door." I had known these, and such as these; but I had not known the Browns. …

This well informed man; this practical and intellectual leader of the anti-slavery movement had been Brown's neighbor for years. Why was it that he had never heard of him? There is but one answer: Brown had not been a worker in Mr. Higginson's vineyard. He had not done anything to attract the attention of any one seriously interested in the anti-slavery cause. He was neither an ardent nor a conspicuous laborer in behalf of the slave.

However, what has been stated herein is the credit side of Brown's account with slavery; there is also a debit side in this history which exhibits strong presumptive evidence that his "horror" of slavery was neither so "passionate" nor so violent but that it could be controlled and modified to accommodate itself to the advantages of the system. When John Brown, the man of affairs, decided to become a resident of the State of Virginia, and engage in business there upon a one thousand acre estate, he knew that he would have to employ some slave labor. He knew also that the "good will" and the patronage of the people living in the section of the country in which he intended to locate, were necessary for the success of his undertaking; these he knew he could not secure unless he conformed to the commercial and social customs prevailing in Virginia, and to the sentiment of Virginians in relation to slavery. These conditions this aggressive speculator and sportsman, did consider and did accept. The letter which he wrote to his wife from Ripley, Virginia, suggests, as a matter of fact, that he had declared a truce in his opposition to slavery, whatever the degree of such opposition may have been; and that he had changed his attitude toward the system to meet the requirements of his prospective environment. The letter, abridged by Mr. Sanborn, is as follows:[58]

Ripley, Va., April 27, 1840.

… I like the country as well as I expected and its inhabitants rather better; and I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Providence, I hope one day to live with my family. … Were the inhabitants as resolute and industrious as the Northern people, and did they understand how to manage as well, they would become rich; but they are not generally so. They seem to have no idea of improvement in their cattle, sheep, or hogs, nor to know the use of enclosed pasture-field for their stock, but spend a large portion of their time in hunting for their cattle, sheep, and horses; and the same habit continues from father to son. … By comparing them with people of other parts of the country, I can see new and abundant proof that knowledge is power. I think we may be very useful to them on many accounts, were we disposed. May God in mercy keep us all, and enable us to get wisdom; and with all our getting and losing, to get understanding.

It would be very much more satisfactory if Mr. Sanborn had published the full text of that part of this letter which treats of the habits of the people, and of the labor conditions existing there. The question of labor was of paramount importance in Brown's Virginia venture. He was an optimist, and in his optimistic forecast saw that the care and cultivation of a thousand acres, and the operation and development of a tanning business would, in time, require a large establishment, necessitating, probably, the labor of a number of slaves. This question then arises: Did John Brown intend or expect to own, ultimately, the necessary slaves to operate this property, or did he intend to hire them from others. His letters consistently abound in minute detail. It is therefore improbable, in the opinion of the writer, that he discussed the manners and customs of the white people of that section with his wife, and wrote of minor conditions existing there, without making some reference to the black people of the country; and to the more important questions of slavery and labor—matters in which he would have a deep personal and pecuniary interest. Mr. Villard did not fail to comment, with surprise, upon the omission of the subject from Brown's letter. He said:[59]