The Natick Resolution; or, Resistance to Slaveholders

Front matter

THE

NATICK RESOLUTION;

or,

Letter to John Brown

THE NATICK RESOLUTION.

LETTER TO JOHN BROWN.

Natick, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1859.

Capt. John Brown:

Dear and Honored Friend—(for the friend of the slave is my dear and honored friend)—A very large and enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of this town, without regard to political or religious creeds, was held last evening, for the purpose of considering and acting upon the following resolution:—

Whereas, Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God; therefore,

Resolved, That it is the right and duty of the slaves to resist their masters, and the right and duty of the people of the North to incite them to resistance, and to aid them in it.

This resolution was adopted by the meeting without a dissenting voice. Though a United States Senator (Henry Wilson) and a United States Postmaster were present, yet not a voice was raised against it by them, nor by any one else, nor against the sentiments it contains. The meeting appointed me a committee to forward their resolution to you. In compliance with their request, and with the promptings of my own heart, I forward it.

The resolution, as you will see, simply affirms the right and duty of resistance, not merely to slavery as a principle or an abstraction, but to slaveholders, the living embodiment of slavery. The South embody slavery and resistance to liberty in their whole life. We would arouse the North to embody liberty and resistance to slavery in their whole life. Wherever the people of the South live, whether in domestic, social, ecclesiastical, political or commercial life, they embody death to liberty. We would stir up the people of the North to embody death to slavery wherever they live. In whatever relations they live, we would incite them to embody liberty as the South does slavery. Death to slavery should, and will, ere long, be the watchword of every domestic and social circle, of every political and religious party, and of every literary and commercial establishment, in the North.

The blessings of the God of the oppressed rest upon you! This is the prayer of thousands who have known you for years, and entirely sympathize with you in the one great object of your life—i.e., to arouse this nation to look the sin, the shame and danger of slavery in the face. We have felt the deepest interest in your plans and movements, as we have known and watched them the last four years; and we have wondered that those who hold to armed resistance to tyrants have not more cheerfully and numerously gathered around your standard of insurrection against slaveholders.

The government and God of this nation daily and hourly proclaim to the people of the North, and to the slaves of the South, their right and duty of armed resistance to slaveholders. You hastened to obey that call to duty made by your country and your God. Virginia herself called you to resist slaveholders, and to free the slaves, by arms and blood, if need be. Why should Virginia hang you? You have only done what she has exhorted you to do from the day of your birth. Why should the North call you a "fanatic," a "maniac," a "ruffian," a "marauder," a "murderer," an "assassin"? You have only done what the religion, the government and God of the nation, for seventy years, proclaimed to be your right and your duty.

Twelve days hence, Virginia will hang your body, but she will not hang John Brown. Better to die a traitor to Virginia, than to live a traitor to yourself and your God. This nation of twenty-five millions will kill your body for treason against them; but had you not done as you have, you would have died a living death for treason against God, as he spoke to you in the depths of your own soul. Acting in obedience to the dictates of your conscience and the behests of your God, you have rendered yourself worthy the honor and glory of a gallows at the hands of slaveholders, who live, not merely as pirates do, to plunder and kill, but for a purpose far more cruel and inhuman—i.e., to turn human beings into chattels.

Who would not thus render himself deserving a gallows at such hands? The highest honor Virginia or the Union can bestow on the champion of liberty, and the living resistant of slavery, is a gallows. From this day, let the friends of the slave march forth to battle with slavery, whether the conflict be on the domestic, social, religious, political or military arena, under the symbol of the gallows, with the martyr and champion of liberty hanging on it.

You must die, as to your corporeal existence. Your visible, tangible presence will no more inspire and urge us on to the conflict; but John Brown, the MAN, the defender of liberty, the assailant of slavery, and the friend of the slave, will live and be with us, to inspire us, to incite us, to spur us up and lead us on to a still closer and more resolute and deadly assault upon slaveholding. You die, conscious that by the gallows you have triumphed, and answered the one great end of your life more effectually than you would have done had you run off thousands of slaves. You triumph by the gallows, not by running off slaves. The nation is aroused. It must now meet slavery face to face, and see it in its deformity and its results. In every department of life, it must meet it and fight it, till it dies, and liberty is "proclaimed throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof."

You, dear friend, whose memory will ever be precious, as that of the slaveholder will ever be detested, have kept your anti-slavery faith; you have fought a good fight, and may say, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me in the day when the last slave shall be free. Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Millions will follow thee, weeping, to the gallows. In pitying accents I hear thee say to them, "Friends of the slave! weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your country; for in this conflict with slavery, there is not an attribute of the Almighty that can take sides with the oppressor." Your execution is but the beginning of that death struggle with slaveholders, which must end in striking the last fetter from the last slave. On the scaffold, thou wilt hear thy God, and the slave's God, saying unto thee, "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I have chosen thee; thou art my servant; I will strengthen thee; I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. All they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded; they shall be as nothing; they that strive with thee shall perish; the [anti-slavery] whirlwind shall scatter them." My spirit is with thy spirit, in the dungeon and on the scaffold.

Thine, for the slave, and against the slaveholder, unto death,

HENRY C. WRIGHT.

First Letter to Governor Wise

The above letter to John Brown, with the resolution passed at Natick, November 20th, 1859, was forwarded to Gov. Wise, of Virginia, accompanied with the following note, requesting him to deliver it to Capt. Brown, then in prison, awaiting his execution:—

Natick, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1859.

Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia:

Sir,—Enclosed is a resolution adopted by the people of Natick, Mass., the residence of the Hon. Henry Wilson. At their request, I forward it to John Brown, with a letter to him. The resolution and letter may give peace and satisfaction to him in his last hours. However repulsive the sentiments may be to you, and to the people over whom you preside, they may sustain him on the scaffold. The appeal is to your magnanimity and justice to put them into his hands.

You think he has done foolishly and wickedly. We think his object has been noble, and his motives disinterested, heroic and sublime. We ask not his life, but we do ask that you would let him know that he lives, and ever will live, in the hearts of his long-tried personal friends, and of the friends of freedom and the enemies of slaveholding throughout the North.

Grant to us and to him this favor, and our sincere thanks shall be yours, though our hearts must ever protest against the injustice and political insanity that, for an effort so truly humane, grand and heroic, shall consign his body to the gallows.

Thine,

HENRY C. WRIGHT.

Letter to Capt. Avis

A copy of the letter to Brown, with the resolution passed at Natick, November 20th, 1859, was also sent to Capt. Avis, keeper of the jail in which Brown was confined, awaiting execution, with the following note:—

Natick, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1859.

Captain Avis:

Sir,—Pardon this intrusion by an utter stranger. God bless you for your kindness to John Brown in these, his last hours!

If consistent with your feelings as a man, and your duties as a jailor, you would oblige me by presenting the enclosed to him for his perusal. It is a resolution adopted by the citizens of Natick, Mass., as expressive of their views on a subject now assuming paramount importance throughout the North. Though the sentiments of the resolution and of the accompanying letter may be repugnant to you, it can do no harm to allow your prisoner to read them, that he may stand on the scaffold knowing that he is fully understood and appreciated by those who have known and sympathized with his plans and movements the past few years, and that, through his death, he will serve the cause he so much loves more effectually, it may be, than he could have done by his life.

God bless the single-hearted, grand and kingly man! He seems to us as one clothed with light and majesty as with a garment. Could he but be spared, there are thousands who would cheerfully take his place, and welcome the gallows in his stead. But he must die, as to corporeal existance, and in his death will consist his greatest triumph.

Thine,

HENRY C. WRIGHT.

Letter to the Richmond Enquirer

LETTER TO THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER.

Natick, Mass., Nov. 21st, 1859.

To the Editor of the Richmond Enquirer:—

Sir,—A large and enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of this town (the residence of Hon. Henry Wilson) was held last evening, called to consider the following resolution:—

"Whereas, Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God; therefore,

"Resolved, That it is the right and duty of the slaves to resist their masters; and it is the right and duty of the people of the North to incite slaves to resistance, and to aid them in it."

This was adopted; and though a United States Senator (Hon. Henry Wilson) and a United States Postmaster were present, not a dissentient voice was raised against it.

The resolution utters the thought of Massachusetts, of New England, and of New York. I have reason to know it does.

Insurrection,—resistance on the part of the slaves and of the North against slaveholders,—is the one idea of the people. That insurrection is the right and duty of slaves, is he one controlling thought of the masses here. Though our Senators and Representatives in Congress dare not avow this as their opinion in Washington, at home, among their constituents, they countenance and sustain it by direct advocacy, or by silence. The North has reason to expect it of them, the coming session, that they will openly advocate the doctrine and practice of insurrection and resistance, as the right and duty of the slaves of the South and of the people of the non-slave States. We have much reason to hope, that, come what may, they will do it.

It was asserted in the above meeting, that John Brown, at Harper's Ferry, had truly embodied the general idea of the North, and had done no more than his simple duty to himself, to the slave, to the slaveholder, to his country, and his God. There are thousands among those who have known his plans and movements the past four or five years, and have sympathized with him, and who have known of his call, as he believes, from God, to do a deed that would arouse the South and the nation to consider the sin and danger of slavery, and who have known also of his unfaltering determination to do that deed, and strike that blow, who would now cheerfully take his place in the dungeon and welcome the gallows in his stead, if thereby he might be spared to lead on the mustering sons of liberty to free the slaves, and crush the power of those who live by whipping and selling women, and by "trafficking in slaves, and the souls of men."

The sin of this nation, as it was asserted in that meeting, is to be taken away, not by Christ, but by John Brown. Christ, as represented by those who are called by his name, has proved a dead failure, as a power to free the slaves. John Brown is and will be a power far more efficient. The nation is to be saved, not by the blood of Christ, (as that is now administered,) but by the blood of John Brown, which, as administered by Abolitionists, will prove the "power of God and the wisdom of God" to resist slaveholders, and bring them to repentance. John Brown and him hung will do that for the slaves and for those who enslave them which Christ and Him crucified has never been made to do. The blood of Christ, as dispensed by the American Church and clergy, has been the most nutritious aliment of American slavery, and has been made to add only to its growth and power; but the blood of Brown, as it will be dispensed by the friends of justice and humanity, will be its certain death, while it will add energetic life and resistless power to liberty.

Redemption is to come to the slave and his oppressors, not by the Cross of Christ, as it is preached among us, but by the gallows of Brown. The Cross of Christ—as borne aloft before this nation—has been and now is a bulwark of defence, a tower of strength, a munition of rocks,—the Gibraltar of American slaveholders; the Gallows of Brown, as it will be borne aloft in front of the hosts of freedom—the true army of the living God against slavery—does and will strike terror to their hearts, and consternation into the ranks of slave-breeders and slave-traders, drive them from their strongholds, and make them a hissing and byword to all lands.

Henceforth, the slaves and their friends in the North will know nothing but John Brown and him hung; and they have only to shriek his name through the midnight chambers of repose of the merciless, but shivering, cowering, slave-drivers, to carry dismay to their guilty hearts. Slaveholders, and their allies and abettors, have known and will continue to know, nothing but Christ and him crucified, as they have learned Him from their slaveholding priests and churches; and they have raised and will continue to raise Him from the sepulchre of the dead past, only to sanctify "the sum of all villany," as embodied in themselves. John Brown and him hanged will be the inspiration and slogan of the aroused slaves and their friends, till the four millions, now held and used as chattels, bought and sold and herded together in concubinage as brutes, punished with death for every attempt to raise themselves to the condition of men and women, and compelled to feel after God and immortality amid beasts and creeping things, shall be regenerated and redeemed.

This may seem to you madness. It is so, as viewed from the slaveholding stand-point. But, it is the madness of the Good Samaritan and of Paul; it is the madness of Jesus Christ; the madness of one who sees and worships God in the living, rather than in the dead; in the living slave, rather than in a dead Jesus; in a living, rather than in a dead Christ. It is the madness of one who, on the public arena of life, by word and by deed, has sought to incite the slaves and the entire nation to a living, practical resistance to slaveholders, in every department of life, and who has taught the people of the North, for twenty-five years, that the purest, sublimest, and most acceptable worship they could render to the God of Justice and Liberty is—"to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free."

HENRY C. WRIGHT.

Second Letter to Governor Wise

LETTER TO HENRY A. WISE,

written on the day in which he killed john brown for seeking to give freedom to slaves.

Boston, Friday, Dec. 2d, 1859.

To Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia:

Sir,—This is the day and this the hour in which John Brown is being hanged by you. His dead body is now hanging on a gallows, and the eyes of twenty-five millions of this nation are fixed upon it. You erected that gallows, you dragged him to it, you tied that rope around his neck, you bound his hands and his feet, you drew that cap over his eyes, and having thus rendered him blind and helpless, you broke his neck.

At fifteen minutes past eleven o'clock, A. M., this day, you murdered John Brown! The entire nation saw you do it, and is a witness against you. Yourself, Virginia, and the nation, at this hour, adjudge you a murderer.

Why did you hang him? This is the one thought of the nation. You must answer it. How? You yourself have pronounced him one of "the truest, bravest, most sincere and noble" men you ever saw. You and your accomplices in this deed of blood assure us that the nation contained not a more "sincere, honest, heroic and conscientious man." Why, then, did you kill him?

Had he made an effort to rescue you, your wife and daughters, your mother and sisters from slavery and from the vengeance, the wrath, the rape and rapine of your slaves, would you have hung him? No. But he sought to rescue slaves from the wrath, rape and rapine of yourself and your fellow slave-breeders and slave-traders, and you killed him. Had he done for you and them the very deeds for which you have hung him, you and they would have pronounced him innocent, and crowned him with glory.

Your slaves have as good a right to enslave you, as you have to enslave them. They have as good a right to scourge your naked back, to drive you to unpaid toil, to sell you as a beast, to shoot you and tear you to pieces with bloodhounds, if you run away, as you have to do these things to them. They have as good a right to subject your wife and daughters, and your mother and sisters, to their passions, as you have to subject theirs to yours. They have as good a right to perpetrate robbery, murder, rape and rapine upon you and your confederates in slave-breeding and slave-trading, and upon your wives and children, as you have to perpetrate like outrages upon them. They have as good a right to defend themselves and families against you and your associates in plunder and rapine, as you have to defend yourselves against them. You and your co-workers in crime call on the North to come down and defend you and your families against your slaves. They come and defend you, and you thank them. The slaves call on John Brown to come down and deliver them and their families from your lusts and your cruelties, and defend their property, their liberties and lives against you. You say it is the duty of the North to defend you against the slaves. John Brown and his God told him it was his duty to defend the slaves against you. He came to Virginia to do so, and for doing his duty, you have hung him. Are you not a murderer?

What says Virginia of your deed? The slaves and all the world look on the seal with which, as Governor of the State, you stamp your letters and all public documents. What do they see? Virginia, standing with one foot on the neck of a prostrate slaveholder, whose head she has just cut off, and holding in her right hand the sword with which she did the deed, all reeking with his blood. Proud and exultant she stands, and in the consciousness of having done a meritorious deed, by ridding the world of a monster and Humanity of its most malignant foe, she challenges the homage of all for what she has done, and in her pride of victory exclaims:—Sic semper tyrannis—"Thus always deal with slaveholders"—i.e., cut their heads off.

Thus Virginia, the State over which you are so proud to preside, says to your slaves, and to all slaves in the State, and in the United States, and in all the world—"Cut off your masters' heads." Not content with mere words, she pictures to them her own proud achievement, and calls on them to look at her in the very act of vanquishing her direst foe, and of beheading him; thus inciting them, by an appeal to the eye as well as to the ear, to resistance, to insurrection, and to blood.

In her Constitution, Virginia says to her slaves, "You are born as free as are your masters, and have the same God-given right to your earnings, to yourselves, your wives, husbands, children and homes as they have." She is ever sounding in the ears of the slaves—"Give me liberty or give me death!"—"Resistance to slaveholders is obedience to God." All the slaveholders and white men and women in Virginia are ever saying to the slaves, "If you, or any others, were to do unto us as we are daily and hourly doing unto you, we would kill, slay and destroy you. If we were in your places, we would kill every man, woman and child that should attempt to prevent us from getting and maintaining our freedom." Thus your State appeals to the slaves, to incite them to a bloody insurrection.

You, sir, make this appeal to the slaves, and to the people of the North. You flaunt this most ferocious and blood-thirsty prayer in their faces every time you set your official seal to a commission, a warrant, a draft, a law, or any document. By this act, your prayer to the slave is, "Arise! and cut off the heads of all slaveholders!"—and you invoke the North to come and help them. John Brown heard your prayer, and the prayer of Virginia. In answer to it, he came to Harper's Ferry. He there sought to rescue men and women from the condition of brutes and chattels, and to restore to them their God-given and State-acknowledged rights. He did not aim to do the bloody deed to slaveholders which you and Virginia exhorted him to do—i.e., behead them! No; he was kind to the tyrants, to his own injury. He simply sought to lead some slaves, imbruted by you and your copartners in crime, to a land of freedom. By your official seal and Constitution, and your historical reminiscences, you invited John Brown to come to Harper's Ferry and run off slaves, and to kill all who should oppose him. You and Virginia declared that it was the right and duty of the slaves to rise against their masters, and to gain their freedom by running away, or by beheading their oppressors; and you told him it was his right and duty to help them. John Brown came, with twenty-one assistants, to help him in a work which you and all Virginia acknowledge would have been a work of love, justice, and humanity, had it been done to free you from slavery. You mustered the State, called on the United States to hasten to your aid, surrounded the self-forgetting hero and his little band, and shot or hung them, deeming that you did a brave and heroic act! You mustered the State and nation to the defence of your property, your wives and children, your houses and lives, against twenty-one men, who had no thought of harm to you, but simply thought to give freedom to slaves. Such bravery must, one day, be appreciated. He was as innocent as were Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, and Patrick Henry, and far more deserving the approval of mankind. You took him, bound him hand and foot, blindfolded him, and then broke his neck! Yourself and Virginia being witnesses, are you not a murderer? Verily, you have your reward!

Why have you and Virginia hung John Brown? To defend your property, (your slaves,) your liberty and lives, against robbery and murder; and your wives and daughters, your mothers and sisters, against rape and rapine. And not being able to defend yourselves, you and Virginia called on the United States to come and help you. You do, then, hold that it is a right and duty to shoot and hang and behead people in defence of liberty, life and home?

You, then, and Virginia, being witnesses, it is the right and duty of the slaves to defend their earnings, their liberty and lives, by arms and blood; and their wives and daughters against the rapine of their masters. You and your fellow slave-breeders and slave-traders live by robbing slaves of their labor, by invading their homes, and ravishing their wives, daughters and sisters, and plundering their nurseries and cradles; and by murdering them, if they attempt to defend themselves and their families. So, in the very act of hanging Brown to defend yourself, you justify him in doing the deed for which you hang him!

Slaves of the South! People of the North! Look at the commission of Judge Parker, who sentenced Brown to be hung; look at the commission of General Taliaferro, who heads the troops of Virginia and of the United States, now surrounding the gallows on which hangs his murdered body; open the commission of Captain Avis, the jailor, and of Sheriff Campbell, who now stand by that murdered body! Whose name is on all these? Not that of Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia. What seal is that? Virginia—her foot on the prostrate and headless form of a slaveholder!

Once more: that death-warrant! Look at it! The name of Henry A. Wise is there. What is the import of that seal? To the slaves it says: "Arise! Cut off your masters' heads! Kill, slay and destroy all who would enslave you, or molest you in your efforts to secure your freedom!" To John Brown it says, "Hasten to Harper's Ferry; incite the slaves to run away, and help them to exterminate all who shall attempt to impede their exodus!"

Thus, in the very death-warrant under which Brown is hung, you and Virginia pronounce him innocent of all evil, and justify the very deed for which you hang him. In every way, you pronounce him guiltless. Yet, you have hung him! Are you not a murderer? Yes! Henry A. Wise and Virginia being witnesses. Yes! the heart, the conscience, the reason and history of the nation being witnesses. Yes! by the testimony of mankind, and by the voice of God.

Dream not that John Brown will appear in this world's history as "a fool," "a fanatic," "a robber," "a ruffian," "a madman," "a monomaniac," "a marauder," or "a murderer." His plan was formed in wisdom and righteousness; and was executed in purest justice, goodness and benevolence, according to the religion and government of Virginia, and of the United States; and according to the convictions of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the people.

What was his object? To arouse the nation to consider the sin, the shame, and the danger of slavery, with a view to its abolition. What was his plan of action? Running slaves off, or dying in the attempt. Either would answer his purpose. This he knew, and was prepared for the alternative. Death at your hands overtook him in the attempt, and when in the act of breaking his neck, your word was heard throughout the land, saying, "Surely, this is a just man!" Has he failed? Never was the life of man—death, rather—a more complete success.

What has been the one ruling thought of Virginia, and of every slave State, and of the Union, the past two months? John Brown and Harper's Ferry! What the one spoken and unspoken word of the entire nation? John Brown and Harper's Ferry! The one pulsation of the nation's heart has been,—John Brown and him hung, for seeking to free slaves! John Brown, the friend of the slave, has edited every paper, presided over every domestic and social circle, over every prayer, conference and church meeting, over every pulpit and platform, and over every Legislative, Judicial and Executive department of government; and he will edit every paper, and govern Virginia and all the Slates, and preside over Congress, guide its deliberations, and control all political caucuses and elections, for one year to come.

In a word, John Brown and him hung will be the one thought of the nation; and John Brown and him hung for "bearing the yoke of the oppressed as if upon his own neck," is now, and will continue to be, the one deep and humiliating feeling that will fill every heart with grief, sadness, shame, indignation and loathing. John Brown has triumphed; and that, too, according to his expectations, in death.