John Brown

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Preface

"Await the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, each fighter has prospered according to his right. His right and his might, at the close of the account, were one and the same. He has fought with all his might, and in exact proportion to all his right he has prevailed. His very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that Scotland become, one day, a part of England: but he does hinder that it become, on unfair terms, a part of it; commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla and Temple of the Brave, that there be a just real union as of brother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of slave and master." — Carlyle.

Emerson says that all history resolves itself into the biographies of a few strong characters. This great truth makes it imperative that we study the life of John Brown. For it is rare that a country produces a man who deliberately and joyously lays down his life for a principle — an idea. When such a character appears among men he is at first maligned and misunderstood, and afterwards persecuted and driven. After his death the people come gradually to see and understand the great truths he died for. It becomes apparent that, after all, though in conflict with accredited forms and established conventionalities, he was right. This realization presses upon the people; the cause in their interest which cost human blood becomes vital to their existence, as the martyr insisted; and it is carried to a triumphant issue, not infrequently by much aid from those who demanded the life of the revolutionist.

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What message has John Brown for us to-daj ? Unless his life can touch and quicken in us truth, justice, and patriotism, it were idle to ponder it. But if we can get some correct comprehension of the motives by which his life was ordered, and it turns out that he sacrificed himself for high and noble purposes, — that he only sought the relief of the poor, the weak and the despised, and in so doing only sought to bring us back to accord with laws both human and divine, — then his life has important lessons for us.

Was John Brown, as some are inclined to say, a saint whose every act was just, who was incapable of doing wrong, who alone and unaided saved Kansas to freedom and America to liberty? JSTo. And we must insist that those who seek to sink him to the level of the criminal and malefactor, who distort their country's history with malice and venom to gratify private animosity or exalt a contemporary, are as much in error. The efforts of both are futile. Posterity comes to a right verdict on the actions of all. Every fact will become fully known that will in any way affect the verdict. In such an instance it is as impossible to conceal a wrong or suppress a virtue as to blot out the sun.

John Brown was human, and as such was burdened with human weaknesses. That he often erred, must be admitted. That his faults were grievous, none knew so well as he himself; and his letters are full of confessions. He made no claim to perfection, and who would place him in a position so false would do him great injustice. He strove daily with his own shortcomings, and never

PEEFACE if

for a moment tried to evade the full responsibility for any act committed by himself or at his instance. Long before he left Kansas for Harper's Ferry he said without evasion or reservation that if the killing at Pottawatomie was murder he was not guiltless, and this was said without any injunction to secrecy.

The strength of John Brown's character lies not in his having been always right. Xo man has ever been so. But it lies in his doing his duty as he saw it. He might and perhaps did fail in judgment, but never in intention, nor by evasion. In Kansas patriotic men differed from him in the policy to be pursued. They would have been satisfied with a temporary peace and any compromise which would have made Kansas a free State. And, indeed, this would have been a great, and when accomplished was, a wonderful achievement. He believed it his duty and the duty of every man to demand freedom for the whole people. He saw that we might patch a compromise and cry " peace ! peace ! " but that there would be no peace and no possibility of permanent peace in Kansas or any other State or Territory so long as our government was an absurdity — so long as we proclaimed freedom and practiced slavery. We had been trying compromise and proclaiming peace for half a century, during which slavery had made conquest after conquest,— marched from triumph to triumph, — until those forces of our country resting on justice, humanity, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Christian religion, said that it was useless to continue longer the deception. Without claiming more than that he was acting in obedience to God's will, John Brown represented these

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forces for our preservation. He believed that God commanded him to make war upon the wickedness of slavery. Not only that, he believed this command was to every other man. I find no evidence that John Brown assumed to be the only man with a divine commission to fight slavery. John Brown heeded this call; therein lies his glory. John Brown was right. He was a revolutionist and a reformer; he went back to first principles, and having done so, deception and temporizing became impossible to him. He saw the inconsistency of a government founded upon freedom enslaving millions of its people. He very properly concluded it was better that such a government oease to exist altogether if it could not be brought to conform to its expressed and underlying principle. As it then existed it was a living lie. He believed that God called him and every other man to work as in him lay, to the end that our country might rise to the divine heights of enduring truth and become in fact what the fathers designed it — the beacon to lead the world to higher conceptions of liberty. In this world obedience to the call of duty and the defense of humanity are due from every man. How few of us respond ! And our universal indifference gives the greater glory to the individual who says in his weakness : Here am I ; send me ; I will do what T can. John Brown said that. In sickness and in health, through evil and good report, maligned and ridiculed, beset by poverty, surrounded by obstacles none other could have overcome, without any hope, desire or expectation of reward in this life, he toiled onward and upward in the steep and rug-

PREFACE ged path appointed to him. There is little doubt that he often saw the scaffold, or a file of soldiers in front of himself with a coffin at his feet, at the end of the way. But he turned not aside. And therein lies the grandeur of the character of John Brown. God had given him the cup, and until He let it pass it must be drained to the last drop. When it was plain that this cup contained the bitterness of death, it was given him to see that he was certainly right, and the power to exclaim with Saint Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing."

It took the Civil War to tell us that John Brown was right. On the scaffold he could exclaim with Carlyle: " For men's hearts ought not to be set against one another; but with one another, and all against the Evil thing only. Men's souls ought to be left to see clearly; not jaundiced, blinded, twisted all awry, by revenge, mutual abhorrence, and the like. An Insurrection that can announce the disease, and then retire with no sucli balance-account opened anywhere, has attained the highest success possible for it."

A word personal. The writing of this Life of John Brown was in the beginning assigned to our Editor, William M. Davidson, Esq., Superintendent of the Public Schools of Topeka, than whom no one is better qualified for the work. But Mr. Davidson found it im-

PREFACE possible to devote the time to it which he believed necessary to attain the highest results. Then he turned the work over to me, together with his results as far as he had gone with the matter. I have had the benefit of bis kindly advice and judgment, the use of his private library, one of the finest in the State, and am under such a debt of obligation to him that nothing less than this public acknowledgment can in any degree discbarge it, and this I gratefully accord him.

My thanks are due, too, to the State Historical Society. Its library is one of the best in the United States, and is rich in documents relating to John Brown. Mr. George W. Martin, the efficient Secretary, placed them all at my service.

I rest also under obligations to F. B. Sanborn, of Concord, Massachusetts, author of Life and Letters of John Brown. During his recent visit to our city we discussed the whole field, and since his return home he has sent me books and papers.

And no less am I bound to Colonel Richard J. Hinton, of Brooklyn, New York. AVhile in attendance upon the sessions of the Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society we had many conferences upon this subject. He has, since his return home, kindly continued to assist me. He was one of John Brown's men, and but one other man now living has such a personal knowledge of the old hero. Colonel Hinton is the author of John Brown and His Men.

Hon. D. W. Wilder, of Hiawatha, Kansas, is entitled to the gratitude of anyone who desires a knowledge of Kansas history. His Annals of Ivansas is the greatest

PREFACE work ever written of our State, and is an imperishable monument to his genius and industry. And aside from that I have had the benefit of his personal interest in this work, and his vast knowledge of the subject has been at all times at my disposal.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs. Sara T. D. Robinson, of Lawrence, Kansas. She has furnished me much information which I could not have obtained elsewhere. One of the earliest and best books written on Kansas is her Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life. It was not the least of the causes that made Kansas free. And in addition to her literary work for " bleeding Kansas," she rendered other services that are a great credit to her head and heart, and of vast benefit to us who enjoy the fruits of them.

The Rev. Thomas C. Richards, pastor of the Congregational Church in West Torrington, Connecticut, to which John Brown's father and mother belonged, has sent me valuable papers, for which I return him my thanks.

The Historical Department of Iowa, Des Moines, sent me books and papers which I found indispensable in this work.

Mrs. E. G. Piatt, of Oberlin, Ohio, now in the evening of a noble and beautiful Christian life, forgetting the weight of her many years, has taken her pen in hand to give me information.

Major J. B. Remington, of Osawatomie, Kansas, married the daughter of the Rev. S. L. Adair, who was the brother-in-law of John Brown. He sent me the letters written by the old hero that yet remain in the family.

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I have talked with a great number of persons in Kansas who were personally acquainted with John Brown. I mention some of them: John Armstrong, Edward P. Harris, G. W. W. Yates, Harvey D. Kice, and Edwin K. Partridge. I have profited by information imparted by all. I have been inspired and aided by the poetry of my friend Eugene F. Ware, and have had the benefit of his genius and research. His knowledge of Kansas affairs if. something wonderful. I am also indebted to my friend, Captain Joseph G. Waters, for many kind and useful suggestions.

I feel, too, that it is due the house of Crane & Company,

for whom this work is prepared, that I should acknowledge

the deep interest they have taken in the collection of

material for the use of the writer. They have ever been

the friends of Kansas writers. They left nothing undone

to help me make this work all that it should be.

WILLIAM E. CONNELLEY.

Topeka, Kansas, June, 1900.

Chapter I. Slavery In America

The abhorred Form Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, Whose names were many and all blasphemous.

— Coleridge.

The origin of moral law must be sought in the dawn of intelligence and at that point in human progress where man is first conscious of human dignity. In the condition anterior to this, man was a savage with a remote social instinct. He was a hunter, and prowled from the same necessity that impels the wolf. As war is a relation between state and state and not a relation between man and man, his conflicts in this early stage of his development are to be regarded as single combats, duels, and encounters; and in these he could capture prisoners but could not make them slaves. Having no occupation nor industry in which one held by force could be profitably employed, he slew his captives on the field of battle or reserved them for torture or sacrifice. If any escaped these ends, they were adopted, and became competent members of the victorious band or family. But death might not await females, for in this period of social progress (or the want of it) whatever of labor is necessary to life is performed by the women. And in the animal kingdom the first and chief contention between the males arises for possession of the females ; in even the crudest forms of society females may be held by force, but their detention is not slavery as we understand the term, and their lot is not more wretched than that of the women born in the family or band holding them.

In the path of human progress the barbarian follows the savage; the advance is chiefly due to the tending of such animals as may have been domesticated. Men are congregated into rude governments, the distinguishing features of which are patriarchal ; men are associated along the lines of consanguinity. Man is here nomadic, but usually the wanderings of a band or community do not extend beyond the bounds of a circumscribed and welldefined district; and such rovings are often to find pasturage for herds and flocks. The outlines of a state are discernible and a rude and savage warfare is possible. Captives are reserved for barter to adjoining tribes, and a few are retained to assist in whatever of agriculture may be practiced ; some may be even intrusted with the care of animals.

In the third period of human progress society becomes sedentary and man fixes himself to the soil of a particular locality, and in the main he keeps to this. This is the result of several causes; as the nomadic families and clans of the barbarous increase, more dependence is had upon the soil for existence. The warlike characteristics are retained, and as slaves cannot be expected to battle valiantly for their masters, they are forced to cultivate the land, and are also given care of the herds and flocks which the masters have deserted for war and conquest.

The divine decree, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," was considered by the ancients a punishment of sufficient magnitude for disobedience to God's specific command. This judgment is founded in the nature of man, for in him there is no inherent love of work. Regular and sustained labor is a characteristic which it lias taken man ages to acquire. "Antipathy to regular and sustained labor is deeply rooted in human nature, especially in the earlier stages of the social movement, when insouciance is so common a trait, and irresponsibility is hailed as a welcome relief."

Productive industry has always been the result of slavery, and has become a fixed characteristic in a people only after ages of labor performed by the helpless under the strong hand of force and oppression. Nowhere has a system of economics arisen by voluntary effort. When the decadence of force enabled the lower strata of society to rise and throw off their bonds, the whole community was compelled to work, — to unite in labor to supply the necessaries and wants resulting from the labor of a portion, now become indispensable to the existence of all. Slavery is reestablished by further conquest, or, perhaps, has not been allowed to become altogether obsolete. But as slavery presupposes the existence of a condition or state of war, it becomes now deleterious to the society founded upon the industries its presence developed. For, in the development of these industries human dignity appears and moral law is perceived; this the moral reaction of slavery tends to subvert, and if involuntary servitude is persisted in as an institution, society is thrown back on itself and industrial and moral development becomes impossible. And the mental powers being different in different individuals, or becoming so by occupations in different industries or by certain conventionalities instituted and imposed by the masters, society divides along the line of mental strength or upon the basis of conventionalities, and this results in the enslavement of a portion of society by caste or custom. The accumulations of ages fall into the hands and under the control of a few. If the inferior classes escape the slavery of caste, slaves are imported, and the free citizens are sent to war. The property of the state, including the land, falls into the hands of the class who rule politically, and who are supported by the labor of the weak and the helpless. They become a class of idlers and cruel oppressors who lead lives of ease, indulgence, and often of excess and wickedness. War is entered upon for conquest and weaker nations are enslaved or destroyed. In this period of human progress slavery becomes a curse to all classes, and must cease, or end in disorder or, even, the destruction of society.

Though the evil effects of slavery always manifest themselves so clearly in this period of progress and are cried out against by the just and the humane, the interests of property are usually paramount to the rights of man, and only the most enlightened nations have abolished slavery.

Only the political effects of slavery and its aid in the development of productive industry have been noticed here. The moral effects of the institution have been scarcely considered in the foregoing. While it must be admitted that politically slavery was indispensable in the early periods of social progress, in that productive industry is wholly the result of it, it is true that its moral effects have always been debasing and disastrous, and equally so to the master and the slave. It always afforded unusual opportunities for the indulgence of the basest propensities of human nature. Another evil of slavery, more manifest to society than the preceding one, was the development of tyranny. Absolute rule — the exercise of absolute power — is ruinous to man's nature, and the arrogance and intolerance it develops in a class are always subversive of patriotism. It engenders and develops all the brutal tendencies of unrestrained human nature. Flattery is sought and vanity becomes characteristic. True conditions of moral life become obscured, society becomes distorted, and tendencies to decay and demoralization are hailed as signs of social and political progress. The rights of others are wholly disregarded, and this characteristic is carried into all intercourse with institutions and states. Constraint in even its mildest forms is irksome, — not to be endured or even thought of, — and the policy of the slave-owner comes to be expressed in two words — rule or ruin. Reason is dethroned and tyranny set on the throne in the temple of human liberty. The voice of protest is stifled and the right of free speech denied. In ancient times the sages commented on "the little humanity commonly observed in persons accustomed from their infancy to exercise so great authority over their fellow-creatures and to trample upon human nature. Nor can a more probable reason be assigned for the severe, I might, say, barbarous manners of ancient times than the practice of domestic slavery, by which every

TWENTIETH CENTURY CEASSICS man of rank was rendered a petty tyrant, and educated amidst the flattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves."

Slavery was introduced into the ~Kew World by the Spaniards. They enslaved the natives, and in many places exterminated them by this barbarous system. Before'the discovery of America (in 1402), the Portuguese had begun to enslave the Africans. One Antam Gonsalves captured some Moors while exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa, and carried them to his own country; Prince Henry the Navigator ordered them returned to their own land; and as a reward for this act of justice the Moors of that country gave Gonsalves ten negroes and some gold dust. Here was discovered by accident an opportunity for enterprise in a new field of commerce, and many Portuguese embraced it. Ports were built and manned along the Atlantic coast of Africa, to serve as bases for the slave trade. From these points many negroes were sent into Portugal and Spain, and their descendants were carried slaves to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America. Early in the sixteenth century the King of Spain granted a patent to a favorite courtier, giving him the exclusive right to carry negro slaves to the West Indies. This patent allowed the importation of four thousand slaves per annum; it was sold to Genoese navigators, who procured their negroes from the Portuguese. The practice became from this time systematic, and was eagerly entered by many of the nations of Europe. The first Englishman to engage in this odious traffic was Captain John Hawkins, who amassed a great estate, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. England had no colonies in America at that time, and Sir John's business was with the Spanish settlements. His manner of barter is said to have been somewhat arbitrary. It is recorded of him that he would land with his human chattels at some unfortified town, train the cannon of his ships upon the principal buildings, and then demand that he be instantly paid so much for his human cargo. His conditions were complied with from necessity, and the bluff old Captain sailed away with great satisfaction.

Those portions of our country acquired from Spain, or some of them, contained slaves before the English planted colonies in America. But in 1620 a Dutch ship landed at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia, with slaves obtained on the coast of Guinea. A part of this cargo was sold to the tobacco-planters of Virginia. The trade here commenced was carried into all the colonies of Great Britain in America; and in 1790 Virginia contained two hundred thousand negro slaves.

The greatest men of England condemned the slave trade in the last half of the seventeenth century, and in 1772 Lord ]VIansfield defined the legal status of an English slave in his famous decision rendered for the whole bench. He declared that u as soon as a slave set his foot on the soil of the British Islands he was free."

The first action taken in England by an organization or body against the slave trade was had by the Quakers, who declared in their meeting of 1727 that it was a practice "not to be commended or allowed." In 1761 they prohibited their members from engaging in it. They formed an association of their members in 17So having for its object "the relief and liberation of the negro slaves in the West Indies, and for the discouragement of the slave-trade on the coast of Africa." The practice was not, however, abolished and prohibited by England until 1811. Denmark was the first country to abolish the loathsome traffic; May 16, 1792, it was decreed that it cease in the Danish possessions at the end of 1802.

The Quakers in Pennsylvania advocated the abolition of the slave-trade before those in England considered the question. Their first opposition to it was formulated in 1696; and they continued to take advanced ground upon the subject until 1776, when they excluded slaveholders from membership in their society. The United States finally prohibited the importation of slaves; the law was passed March 2d, 1807, to become effective January 1st, 1808.

Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and many others of the founders of the Republic opposed slavery and saw in it the source of evil and trouble to our country. Jefferson was the most active of its eminent adversaries. In 1784 he proposed to the Continental Congress a plan of government for the territory included now in the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, in which it was provided that ''after the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of said States, otherwise than in punishment for crime." This humane and patriotic measure was lost. The convention which met in Philadelphia in 1787 and formed our Constitution was opposed to slavery. The fathers of the Republic there assembled would have provided for its extinction but for the States of South Carolina and Georgia.

Both of these States, the latter probably at the instance of the former, insisted upon its retention as a condition to their becoming members of the new Union. In the same year slavery had been excluded from the territory northwest of the Ohio river by the last Continental Congress. Slavery was gradually extinguished in the North. Slavery having survived the establishment of the Republic, it soon became aggressive. Its tenacious depravity was aided by many favorable circumstances. The influences which augmented the increasing power of the slave-owners and slave States are marked in our national growth by (1) The acquisition of Louisiana, although the purchase was not made in the interest of slavery; (2) The Missouri Compromise of 1820; (3) The annexation of Texas, in 1845; (4) The Fugitive Slave Law, slavery legalized in New Mexico, and the other measures of the Compromise of 1850; (5) The Kansas-Nebraska bill, 1854.; (6) The Ostend Manifesto, 1854; (7) The attempt to reopen the slave-trade, 1859-60. While the measures of 1854 were in the interest of slavery, they precipitated the conflict which ended in its extinction. There were many subordinate causes for the growth of slavery, not the least of which was the invention of the cotton-gin by Whitney, the profits of which were almost all filched from him by the slave States. The South apostatized from the faith of Jefferson, and chiefly through the efforts of Calhoun. The tariff was made the cause in 1828, when Calhoun declared that the resolutions of '98 inculcated the doctrine of secession as a remedy against obnoxious or unsatisfactory Federal laws. His construction was soon made u applicable to slavery by Southern statesmen, who were determined to make this institution the underlying principle of a league or cabal for the control of the Government.

tt is wonderful to realize the completeness of the infatuation of tlic South with the institution of negro slavery. It is strange and seems almost incredible that the truth of history allows us to say that in this free land, up to 1860, freedom of speech was absolutely prohibited^ more than one-half of it. Yet such is the fact. No minister dared to lift up his voice there against slavery or any of its evil consequences. Sermons were always prepared to meet the approval of the slave-owners. Mob law and such punishments as burning at the stake were advocated by the aristocratic press of the South as suitable for those who opposed their institution on its own ground. The non-slaveholding whites were terrorized and brutally hung without trial. Many persons of Northern birth were put to death in the South upon mere suspicion and without even mob trial. The Government mails were rifled and anti-slavery literature seized and publicly burned by the clergy and prominent men in public assembly. The Rev. Elijah P. Love joy was slain in Alton, Illinois, and anti-abolition riots occurred in many Northern cities, including Boston. Never in our history have the arrogance and intolerance of the slave-power been equaled. It was boasted that the masters would again call the rolls of their slaves in the shadow of the Bunker Hill monument. Public moneys were embezzled and purloined to buy newspapers to speak for slavery. It was asserted that could Washington have returned to life he would have been mobbed in Virginia.

A lawyer sent from Massachusetts to South Carolina to perform a mission for the State was forced to depart from Charleston after a mob had been for days warning him to quit the city; he and his daughter were forcibly placed in a carriage, driven to the wharf, placed on a boat and sent away. Slavery was carried into our foreign relations, and we stood in the eyes of the world what we in fact were — a slave Nation. At the close of the Missouri struggle in 1820 a Governmental policy was formulated which prevented the North from reaping any advantage accruing from that Compromise. The arable portion of the country north of the Compromise line in the Louisiana Purchase was assigned to emigrant tribes of Indians, to be by them held "as long as grass grows or water runs." As opposed to this policy for the North, Texas was annexed to afford slavery a field for expansion. Cuba was coveted, and the slave-power committed the Government to its acquisition. The Mexican war brought vast territory to slavery ; and as a last resort the Compromise was repealed. The supreme tribunal of the land was made the ally of slavery, and announced that the institution could not be excluded by law from any territory in the United States. Slavery dominated the Government; up to 1860 the South had held the Presidency forty-eight years — more than two-thirds of the time to 1860 — eleven of sixteen terms. The South had seventeen of the twenty-eight Justices of the Supreme Court, fourteen of the nineteen Attorneys- General, sixty-one of the seventy-seven Presidents of the Senate, twenty-one of the thirty-three Speakers of the