Part 5

“I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.”

Judge Parker fixed the date for hanging on December 2nd, 1859, a month away. It was a fatal mistake for the South, and John Brown’s finest gift at the hands of the God he believed in.

THE AGITATOR IN JAIL

For in that month, John Brown accomplished more for abolition than even the stern deeds of Kansas had effected. He had put by the sword forever, and now for a month took up the pen and made it as powerful a weapon. He wrote innumerable letters to Northern friends and they were published and read everywhere. Their tone was Christ-like; no longer was Brown the militant Captain in the field, but the sweet, patient martyr waiting for his end in tranquil joy. In many letters he repeats the statement that he is glad to die; that his death is of more value to the cause than ever his life could have been. This was no vainglorious hysterical gesture with John Brown; he was calmly certain of it; he slept peacefully as a child at night, and wrote his letters by day, secure in his tranquil wisdom. Friends were planning an attempt to rescue him, but he forbade them to try, for he really felt that his death was necessary. “I am worth now infinitely more to die, than to live,” he said.

And in his letters he gave Americans his last warning on the slavery question. He told them it must be settled; it could not go on. His letters were so strong, manly, and yet so touching, that even the jailor wept as he censored them in the course of his duties. As Wendell Phillips said, the million hearts of his countrymen had been melted by that old Puritan soul.

With absolute equanimity, John Brown wrote his will, wrote his last few letters to his family, determined the coffin in which he was to be buried, and the inscription on the family monument, said farewell to his fellow-prisoners and jail-keepers. On the morning of December 2nd he stood calmly on the steps of the scaffold and gazed about him. Before leaving his cell he had handed to another prisoner the following last and uncompleted message:

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without much bloodshed it might be done.”

Now, as he looked about, he could see massed beyond the fifteen hundred soldiers Virginia had felt necessary for this execution, the hazy outlines of the Blue Ridge mountains. The sun was shining; the sky was blue, and his heart was at peace. “This is a beautiful country,” he said, “I never had the pleasure of really seeing it before.” He walked with perfect composure up the steps, watched by the eyes of the soldiery and officialdom of slave-holding Virginia. They saw not a tremor in his face or body; not even when the cap was drawn over his head, his arms pinioned at the elbows, the noose slipped around his neck. He had refused to have the solace of any ministers, for they believed in slavery, and he told them he did not regard them as Christians. He needed no man’s solace; he was braver than any one there. “Shall I give you the signal when the trap is to be sprung?” said a friendly sheriff. “No, no,” the serene old man answered, “just get it over quickly.”

And quickly enough, it was all over for John Brown. The trap was sprung; his body hung between heaven and earth. In the painful silence that followed, the voice of Colonel Preston declaimed solemnly, the official epitaph, “So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the Union! All such foes of the human race!”

That was the verdict of the South, still infatuated and blinded by its slave system. But on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line men were pronouncing a different verdict on John Brown, and on the other side of the Atlantic, the greatest man of letters in Europe, Victor Hugo, was saying:

“In killing Brown, the Southern States have committed a crime which will take its place among the calamities of history. The rupture of the Union will fatally follow the assassination of Brown. As for John Brown, he was an apostle and a hero. The gibbet has only increased his glory, and made him a martyr.”

HIS SOUL GOES MARCHING ON

John Brown was hung on December 2, 1859. Exactly eleven months later Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Exactly eight months after that, Northern troops were marching southward, to put down the rebellion of the slave states that had hung Brown.

No one at the time believed events would march so swiftly after Brown’s death. There were many who knew that some sort of conflict between the North and South was inevitable; it had been brewing for decades. But there were as many more who were confident that slavery would win its legal fight, and would spread over the whole continent. And the great mass of Americans just faintly understood the issues involved; to most of them, John Brown seemed some kind of mad fanatic.

President Lincoln’s election undoubtedly provoked the Civil War. And his election was undoubtedly due to the discussion on slavery that raged after John Brown’s deed. Lincoln was the first Northerner to be elected in forty years; the South had always carried things before it, and would have done so again had not John Brown roused the entire North to a consciousness of what slavery meant.

He did more than all the abolitionists had been able to do in their fifty years of agitation.

And yet even most of his friends thought him mad at the time of the deed. Abraham Lincoln, in a campaign speech at Cooper Union, in New York, said: “Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a state. We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.”

Only men of the stamp of Wendell Phillips fully understood what John Brown had done. His funeral oration at the last resting place of John Brown’s body had all the vision of the prophets:

“Marvelous old man!... He has abolished slavery in Virginia. You may say that this is too much. Our neighbors are the very last men we know. The hours that pass us are the ones we appreciate the least. Men walked Boston streets, when night fell on Bunker Hill, and pitied Warren, saying, ‘Foolish man! Thrown away his life! Why didn’t he measure his means better?’ Now we see him standing colossal on that blood-stained sod, and severing that day the tie which bound Boston to Great Britain. That night George III ceased to rule in New England. History will date Southern emancipation from Harper’s Ferry. True, the slave is still there. So, when the tempest uproots a pine in your hills, it looks green for months, for a year. Still, it is timber, not a tree. John Brown has loosened the roots of the slave system; it only breathes--it does not live--hereafter.”

Wendell Phillips was a prophet; and even men of wide vision like Lincoln could not attain his lofty view. At first there was a rush of Northern politicians to disavow and condemn John Brown’s deed. Later, there was approval; still later understanding; still later, worship.

Yes, the old man seemed mad, as all pioneers are mad. Gorky has called it the madness of the brave. But such madness seems necessary to the world; the world would sink into a bog of respectable tyranny and stagnation were there not these fresh, strong, ruthless tempests to keep the waters of life in motion.

Who knows but that some time in America the John Browns of today will be worshipped in like manner? The outlaws of today, the unknown soldiers of freedom.

“And his soul goes marching on.”

Transcriber’s Note:

Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

- Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

- Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.

- Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:

Page 6: "civilization in the New world" to "civilization in the New World" Page 12: "a circumstance occured" to "a circumstance occurred" Page 20: "his thirty-fith" to "his thirty-fifth" Page 22: "in communities where everyone" to "in communities where every one" Page 24: "John Brown of Osawotamie" to "John Brown of Osawatomie" Page 25: "most of the Border Ruffins" to "most of the Border Ruffians" Page 26: "settlement at Osawotamie" to "settlement at Osawatomie" Page 32: "It publishe a newspaper" to "It published a newspaper" Page 34: "on the Pottawotamie" to "on the Pottawatomie" Page 34: "he had a shot gun" to "he had a shotgun" Page 42: "eleven other slave" to "eleven other slaves" Page 44: "not insane. Cooly" to "not insane. Coolly" Page 57: "suddenly found themelves" to "suddenly found themselves"