Hill Peebles Wilson

“ The strangest of all is to see peace men, those in the States who were members of peace societies, and who were sending delegates to peace congresses, laboring to inaugurate civil war, with the expressed object of working a revolution throughout the nation, ultimating in a dissolution of the Union; and all to procure the emancipation of the slave. Simple men! They should learn that revolutions involving such grave consequences are not usually set on foot by murderers and thieves. ”

“ From this atmosphere, pregnant with the sentiment of disloyalty to the Union, Brown derived the inspiration which encouraged him to plan to do what his mentors had not the courage to undertake. Out of his negotiations with them came money; munitions of war; Hugh Forbes, the revolutionist; mutual planning for a revolution, and a dream of empire.
John Brown will live in history; but his name will not be found among the names of those who have wrought for humanity and for righteousness ”

“ There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for one of John Brown.... Those who thought best of him, and those who thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought him to Harper's Ferry. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Hence, I left the South, and went to Kansas; and endeavored personally, and by my pen, to precipitate a revolution.
After Brown's spectacular fiasco in Virginia, and tragical death, his cultured partisans, in most conspicuous eloquence proclaimed him to have been a philanthropist—an altruistic hero; and placed a martyr's crown upon his brow. Mr. Redpath's purpose, in putting forth his work, was to make Brown over to fit the part; to make his life appear to conform with the extravagant attributes of his improvised estate. ”

“ The spectacle which met Brown's gaze as he stepped upon the porch from the door of the jail on his way to the scaffold, could not otherwise than recall to his mind the dreams of conquest and of military glory which he had cherished. Three thousand men—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—were under arms. In admiration of the display—for the "street was full of marching men," he said: "I had no idea that Governor Wise considered my execution so important," [494] and for that reason, Mr. Villard says, "no little slave-child was held up for the benison of his lips, for none but soldiery was near." ”

“ Brown did not contemplate dying at Harper's Ferry any more than did Hugh Forbes, or Stevens, or Cook, or Kagi: and he would not have died at Charlestown if he could have controlled the event. These men knew that some of them would, probably, die, but each passed the subject over lightly, believing that in some inscrutable way, if fatalities occurred, it would be some of the others who would fall. Men of their type "die but once." Brown accepted the chances of war as did his followers, and as Forbes sought the opportunity of doing. ”

“ His army was to be created; he had the men in view—the slaves whom he would set free—but not the officers to command them. If the enlisted men would desert from their service singly or en masse, and thus temporarily paralyze the United States forces, and join him, they could immediately become commissioned officers in his army and share with him the honors, the booty, and the beauty of the rich country he intended to ravage. ”

“ They fail to touch upon the vital purpose that led Brown, in the disguise of a farmer or cattle buyer, to take up his residence at the Kennedy farm house. They fail to even hint at the broad purpose of his being there, or of the commanding things which he strenuously sought to promote during the months that he occupied the ground. They trifle with their theme and with their characters. These men had not dedicated their lives to martyrdom "that others might live." Their impromptu metamorphosis from "soiled lives" to consecrated lives is gratuitous. ”

“ Harper's Ferry, by the admission of military men, was admirably chosen as the spot at which to begin a war of liberation. The neighboring mountains, with their inaccessible fastnesses, with every one of which, and every turning of their valleys, John Brown had been familiar for seventeen years, would afford to guerrilla forces a protection the most favorable, and a thousand opportunities for a desperate defense or rapid retreats before overwhelming numbers of an enemy. ”

“ So ended this last Kansas invasion—the Missourians returning with flying colors, after incurring heavy expenses, suffering great exposure, hardships, and privations, not having fought any battles, burned or destroyed any infant towns or Abolition presses; leaving the Free-State men organized and armed, and in full possession of the Territory; not having fulfilled any of all their dreadful threatenings, except to murder one unarmed man, and to commit some robberies and waste of property upon defenseless families, unfortunately within their power. ”

“ John Brown had a motive for disbanding the Liberty Guards. What was it? He had a motive for quitting the Free-State army secretly. Why secretly? He had "no desire all things considered, that the slave-power should cease from its acts of aggression." Why should he not desire peace? He had a purpose in view when he organized the Pottawatomie Rifles under the command of his son, and a motive for organizing five of his sons into a separate company: "a little company by ourselves." ”

“ Thus, the conquest of Mexico—the prize trophy in the triumphal procession of pro-slavery events—carried with it, by the irony of fate, the Nemesis of her despoiled people. Within two years a Free State had been carved out of the Territory which the South had won for slavery.
The contests which were had over the admission of Missouri into the Union, and the annexation of Texas, were trivial in comparison with the storm that burst upon the Thirty-first Congress over the admission of California. The already strained relations between the North and the South reached the limits of tension ”

“ In projecting his campaign, Brown was a law unto himself, untrammelled by the accepted usages of war. The excess of his ardor and enthusiasm led him to believe that he could corrupt the rank and file of the army. In his philosophy, the daring, dangerous, adventurous men who largely composed the enlisted men of the army at that time, having no hope of promotion in the service, would become eager listeners to his proposal. ”

“ To the men from the Pottawatomie, a massacre was simply a means to an end. Brown and his sons harbored no feelings of animosity toward the Doyles, the Shermans, and Wilkinson; but they knew that these men would not give up to them, peaceably, the property which they coveted, therefore they murdered them and took their horses. They knew that the owners of slaves and lands in the Southern States would not, peaceably, relinquish their ownership of this property ”

“ I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind. ”

“ Russell broke out, "If I were you, Mr. Brown, I would fight those ruffians as long as I lived." "That," he replied, "is not a Christian spirit. If I thought I had one bit of the spirit of revenge I would never lift my hand; I do not make war on slave-holders, even when I fight them, but on slavery." He would hold up Mrs. Russell's little girl, less than two years old, and tell her, "When I am hung for treason, you can say that you used to stand on Captain Brown's hand." [241]
Brown had not been charged with treason in Kansas, nor was he even under suspicion for "constructive" treason. ”

“ Falsehood, deception, greed, selfishness, are not attributes of fanaticism, but they are characteristic of Brown's life. The sincerity of his "death-bed" professions of godliness, and of sympathy for the men in bondage, is discredited by the actions of a lifetime as conspicuous for its turpitude as it was barren of virtues. Neither charitable deed, nor manifestation of a benevolent, or of a patriotic spirit, appears, even incidentally, along the lines of his life, to break the monotone of selfishness that distinguishes it. In public affairs he took no part worthy of consideration. ”

“ He was not executing a raid. Why should his captains proudly march to Harper's Ferry; "their Sharp's rifles hung from their shoulders, their commissions duly signed and officially sealed in their pockets," if they were to trudge back again to the Kennedy farm in demoralizing retreat, with no booty, and without having seen an enemy, and before a hostile shot had been fired; and then "take to the hills," there to be hunted by dogs and men, as wild beasts are hunted, and be shot down as wild beasts are shot, by slave-catchers, patrols, and marshals. ”

“ Therefore, an insurrection by the slaves, having for its object the overthrow of the existing State governments of the South, was a venture, from his point of view, which might be undertaken with reasonable prospects for success; the ultimate result depending largely upon his ability to organize the slaves effectively for revolt; to equip them for the initial uprising, and thereafter to capably direct the movement.
No disaster that ever befell our country, war not excepted, was in any respect comparable with the horrors which would be incidental to a slave insurrection ”

“ Brown knew about the hot vengeful breath which had swept the white population from the fair face of San Domingo. And he was familiar with the attempts which had been made to relight its fires in this country, and to start the tornado of death. He was familiar with what his predecessors in the insurrection business had done, and with what they had tried to do. ”

“ Whereas, slavery throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion, the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination ”

“ And in the execution of this venture—the climax of all his undertakings—he was neither trifling nor juggling with its details, as his biographers have persisted in doing with his motives, and with what his intentions and his plans were, in these premises.
Brown was not advertising his revolution when he secretly entered Harper's Ferry. These men were not baiting Death for spectacular effect. They had a well defined purpose in view, but it was not to "capture a few slave-holders and release some slaves." ”

“ May 24th John Brown, Jr., wrote to his father: "Salmon, Frederick, and Owen say that they never was in a country that [Pg 73] begun to please them as well, and I will say that the present prospect for health, wealth, and usefulness much exceeds even my most sanguine anticipations. I know of no country where a poor man, endowed with a share of common sense and with health, can get a start as easy. If we can succeed in making this a free state, a great work will be accomplished for mankind." ”

“ Sanborn said:
Such was the man—of the best New England blood, of the stock of the Plymouth Pilgrims, and bred up like them "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord"—who was selected by God, and knew himself to be so chosen, to overthrow the bulwark of oppression in America. He seems to have declared a definite plan of attacking slavery in one of its strongholds, by force, as early as 1839; and it was to obtain money for this enterprise that he engaged in land-speculations and wool-merchandise for the next ten or twelve years.... Other men might have been spared but Brown was indispensable. ”

“ Last Tuesday was an election day with Free State men in Kansas, and hearing that there was a prospect of difficulty we all turned out most thoroughly armed (except Jason, who was too feeble) ; but no enemy appeared, nor have I heard of any [Pg 79] disturbance in any part of the Territory. Indeed, I believe Missouri is fast becoming discouraged about making Kansas a slave State, and I think the prospect of its becoming free is brightening every day. Try to be cheerful, and always "hope in God," who will not leave nor forsake them that trust in him. ”

“ I expect nothing but to "endure hardness"; but I expect to effect a mighty conquest, even though it be like the last victory of Samson. I felt for a number of years in earlier life, a steady, strong desire to die; but since I saw any prospect of becoming a reaper in the great harvest, I have not only felt quite willing to live, but have enjoyed life much ”