We know that all this is so, for we remember it; but the student of the future must get his knowledge from books, and in the light of progress what will he think of defenseless women being mobbed in a Connecticut town for allowing Negro girls to attend their school? Even now there is no distinction of color in our schools, and at the High School in this city, a colored girl has graduated whose foster father was a slave in Danville, Virginia, while the head master of the school was held there a prisoner of war. Side by side they sit in our schools of all grades, and, graduating from our Normal Schools, become teachers in the schools themselves. He will read that Garrison, Phillips, Foster and others, were often in peril of their lives for preaching liberation of the slaves; and how like a myth will it seem to him, when we, in twenty-five years from the death of John Brown, have seen colored men in both branches of the National Legislature, and to-day cannot look upon a lately issued Government Note without reading the name of one[A] who was once in bondage. Popular prejudice, the strongest barrier possible, is rapidly yielding; and the bayonet, the ballot and the spelling book, have wrought wonders. With all professions open to the colored man, with equal rights before the law, with millions of property accumulated since the war, who shall say that the soul of John Brown is not marching on?
In the days prior to those of Harper's Ferry Raid, this good City of Worcester, and the County of the same name, had spoken in no uncertain manner as to their appreciation of Slavery and its attendant evils. The first county in the Commonwealth to raise the question of the validity of Slavery in Massachusetts subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, she well sustained her early acquired reputation in the more troublous times of later years. In 1839, in this city was tried the famous Holden Slave Case, where a native of Worcester County had brought to her early home from her more recent Southern one, a specimen of human property in the shape of a black girl fourteen years old, by name Anne. By special enactment of Massachusetts no one could be held in bondage thus unless perfectly willing, and certain citizens of Holden, knowing that the treatment which the girl received could not be borne except under duress, secured her person, and bringing her to the Heart of the Commonwealth, made her "Free indeed." For thus acting, these citizens were arrested and indicted, for just what, it seems difficult, at this time, to state; but they were deemed or called culpable for having, without her consent, taken this girl, Anne, from bondage and actually giving her liberty. More than fifty years ago this, and how like a dream the whole matter seems. Ira Barton was the Justice of the Peace before whom one of the depositions was made. Solomon Strong, the earliest appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the Judge who heard the case. Pliny Merrick was the District Attorney who conducted the prosecution, and Charles Allen the Attorney who appeared for the defense. The trial had not advanced a great ways ere Mr. Merrick declared that there was no cause of action, and the jury at once acquitted the defendants. Charles Allen! A host of recollections of the Free Soil and Anti-Slavery days spring into being at the mention of his name. He was the Massachusetts Whig who, in 1848, refused to bow the knee to the Southern Baal, and to his fellow members of the Convention, after the nomination of General Taylor dared to say: "You have put one ounce too much on the strong back of Northern endurance. You have even presumed that the State which led on the first Revolution for Liberty will now desert that cause for the miserable boon of the vice-presidency. Sir, Massachusetts spurns the bribe," referring thus to the proposed nomination of Abbott Lawrence. It was a brother of Charles Allen our late esteemed friend, the Rev. George Allen, who in the same year offered to a meeting in Worcester, the most famous resolution of the whole ante-bellum period. Catching the spirit of his brother's words, he said: "Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains and spurns all bribes; that Massachusetts now, and will ever go, for free soil and free men, for free lips and a free press, for a free land and a free world." This was a good key-note, and when, six years later, in 1854 a slave-catcher came to this same city of Worcester, the citizens proved that they could raise the tune most readily; and the would-be man-stealer was only too happy to march to its measures out of the city, without his booty, and possessed of a whole skin. Mr. Jankins, the object of Butman, the kidnapper's cupidity, during these intervening thirty years, has continued to live in this city, a respectable and respected citizen; and has seen his children in the highest schools of the city. One, having graduated from the High School, is now in the Normal School. What a comment this, on the times when, in this Christian land, men and women were imprisoned for teaching black people how to read,—the Bible even.
I doubt whether the people of Worcester were the very strictest interpreters of the law in the days when the life of John Brown was in the balance. Of the technicalities of his offence it is not ours to judge. The people of the North who had made haste to rid themselves of slavery, had viewed for years the aggressive unrest of the South. While civilized countries other than ours had forever abolished the wretched system, our country, led by its Southern minority, had again and again done its best to bolster and uphold it. The war with Mexico, the annexation of Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, were only successive sops thrown to the insatiable monster. The repeal of the Compromise opened the Territory of Kansas to both Slavery and Anti-Slavery, and henceforth Massachusetts speaks with no uncertain voice. John Brown and Charles Sumner simultaneously spring into renown and immortality. Both of Bay State antecedents, their history is largely hers. One on the plains of Kansas fights for what he believes to be the right. His own blood and that of his sons flow in behalf of oppressed humanity. Border ruffians are driven back and a Free State Constitution adopted. Sumner, from his place in the United Sates Senate, boldly proclaims his sentiments on "The Crime against Kansas," and by an illustrious scion of the Southern aristocracy is stricken down in a manner which "even thieves and cut-throats would despise." The contest was on,—any pause thereafter was only a temporary lull. In the language of New York's most distinguished Senator, it was "Irrepressible." John Brown had repeatedly led parties of slaves from Missouri to Kansas, and made of them free men. He contemplated other and grander strokes against the peculiar institution. In his singleness of purposes, he saw not the power of the Government intervening, and perhaps, in his intensity, it would have made no difference if he had. Certain, however, is the statement, that the one grand idea over-towering all others in his mind, was that of liberty for the slaves; and for that idea men of his own and subsequent days have done him reverence.
Why review the scenes of those hours of attack and fierce defence at Harper's Ferry? Poorly informed, indeed, must be that American man or woman, boy or girl, who has not repeatedly read the events of those less than twenty-four hours of condensed history. They furnish the prelude to every account of the War of the Rebellion. No matter how vivid the scenes of later days, somewhere in the background we get these earlier details over again. The blow once struck, and there arose from Maine to Texas cries ranging through all the variations of surprise, exultation, and fiercest denunciation. I am speaking as a Northern man to Northern people, and it is natural that we should look upon the acts of John Brown with quite different feelings from those held by the people who saw in them the uprooting of all the traditions and customs of their society. For the present, however, I will confine myself to the opinions of those who from the north side of Mason and Dixon's Line, heard the "clash of resounding arms." There were many men who had in various ways assisted Brown in his work without knowing just what his plans were. It sufficed for them to know that he was to harry the Institution, leaving to him the perfecting and executing of details. The telegraphic dispatches on that Monday morning of October 17th, carried consternation into other homes than those of the South. It seemed reasonable to the Government that men who had contributed in any way to the support of John Brown must have been privy to his plans. However much we may pride ourselves now that such and such men assisted the movement, then the barest suspicion of complicity made many households look to their hearths. Some, whose names had been mingled with his, sought refuge in Canada, as Dr. S.G. Howe, Frederick Douglass and F.B. Sanborn. Gerrit Smith of New York, worn out by previous hard work, was by this final burden reduced to a condition necessitating his removal to the Utica Asylum. Now that the affair is all over and past, it seems very strange that men like those mentioned before, who were known to be intimate with the Revolutionist, were not made to suffer at the hands of the law. The only explanation that occurs to me is that public opinion, while it might not stay the hand of the executioner in Virginia, most resolutely opposed his crossing the line. "The New York Democratic Vigilance Association" issued a manifesto breathing forth threatenings against all those implicated in the matter, but it came to nothing. Every movement of the trial was followed with the closest interest, and Massachusetts sent down a man to assist in the defense who became, in after years, one of her most famous sons. It is certain that the experience of these weeks at Harper's Ferry gave John A. Andrew the prompting to the extraordinary zeal with which he entered upon the duties of his gubernatorial office less than two years afterward. The whole trial seems farcical; but we must admit that a show of fairness was had, and, considering the ferocity with which the old man was attacked when down in the Engine House, the only wonder is that he was granted a trial at all. Through all the trying hours of that ordeal how like a hero did he deport himself! Grand in his assaults on the citadel of slavery, he became grander still as he calmly met his enemies, and told them of his purposes. Never boastful, he assumes nothing, but at the end, when asked to say why sentence of death should not be imposed upon him, he said: "The Court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the Law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things 'whatsoever I would that men should do unto me I should do even so to them.' I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. 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, was not 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 submit; so let it be done." Even if we grant that he was technically wrong we must accord to him the meed of perfect sincerity. Whatever his failings he had not that of lying. "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends." John Brown fulfilled the highest interpretation of this Scriptural maxim. The edict once published, and all over the North there was a feeling of the deepest sympathy. There was nothing that could be done. People must wait and meditate. Just enough more than a month to bring the execution on Friday was accorded the condemned man, for it was on Monday the 31st of October that the trial was ended, and the sentence was pronounced the following day.
During this month follow the letters, the sermons, the speeches, the editorials, the thinking, that were the immediate results of the attack. Never had the subject of Negro Slavery been so thoroughly ventilated. The liberation of the Slave was coming, and that speedily through the agency of Brown, but not in the way he had intended. While audiences throughout the North, and South, too, were roused to fever heat through the presentations, in different lights it is true, of this cause, the prime mover in the matter was making his final preparations for departure. Preparations, I say, not in the sense that we ordinarily give the word, for of his own future he had no doubt, but in that of care for the families of his stricken followers. To Mrs. Lydia Maria Child he writes asking her assistance in behalf of his daughters-in-law, whose husbands, his sons, fell by his side, three daughters, his wife, Mrs. Thompson whose husband fell at Harper's Ferry, and a son unable to wholly care for himself. To a Quaker lady of Newport, R.I., he sends asking her to write and to comfort the sad hearts at North Elba, Essex County, N.Y. To his wife "'Finally, my beloved, be of good comfort.' May all your names be 'written on the Lamb's book of life—may you all have the purifying and sustaining influence of the Christian religion is the earnest prayer of your affectionate husband and father, John Brown. P.S. I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day, nor a storm so furious or dreadful as to prevent the return of warm sunshine and a cloudless sky. But, beloved ones, do remember that this is not your rest; that in this world you have no abiding place or continuing city. To God and his infinite mercy I always commend you. J.B."
And thus he wrote to his half-brother, to his old schoolmaster, to his son Jason, and to many others. Every word is expressive of the deepest anxiety for the welfare of his loved ones, and a calm trust in the God of all as to the righteousness of his cause. Such words and such behaviour do not comport with the "black heart" which a large part of the nation was then ascribing to him. It is true, he told a clergyman of a Southern church who attempted to draw an argument in defence of Slavery, that he did not know the A B Cs of Christianity since he was entirely ignorant of the meaning of the word, "I, of course, respect you as a gentleman, but it is as a heathen gentleman." I can, myself, appreciate to some extent what must have been the feelings of the prisoner at the religious ministrations offered him; for I well remember with what a skeptical air I heard the prayer and the words of a Rebel clergyman who visited the prison in which I was confined in 1865. I knew he was daily praying God to bring defeat to my comrades in arms, to increase the number of prisoners, in fine, for the triumph of the Confederate cause. He undertook a pretty serious task, that of talking entertainingly in a general way to a company of Federal prisoners. Had he come to kneel by the side of a dying man, and to point the way to eternal life, it had been different; but for doctrinal policies what cared we? We had empty stomachs, and till they were filled all creeds were alike illusory. Preaching to hungry men was not a success, and he came but seldom—indeed I remember only once. Dead men were carried out daily, but they went unattended by religious rites. I recall now the thought, if God heard his prayer and answered it, of what avail was mine; but I was certain that mine was the one listened to, and that being the case, of what avail was his opinion on the state of the country any way? During these weeks the condemned man is visited by large numbers of people, both friends and foes; but before no one does he for a moment weaken in his constant declaration of the correctness of his cause. Some of the verbal shot that his proslavery interlocutors received were as hot as those which he fired from his musket into their midst on that terrible Monday—for instance, he told Col. Smith, of the Virginia Military Institute, that he would as soon be escorted to his death by blacklegs or robbers as by slave-holding ministers. Socrates, awaiting the death which slowly creeps from his extremities to his heart converses not more quietly and resignedly to those about him than does this decided old man of Harper's Ferry. One, a Stoic, discourses on Death and Immortality; and dying, desires his followers to offer a cock to Æsculapius. The other, a Christian, ceases not to converse concerning the wrongs of an oppressed race, and of his deep anxiety for the slaves; and his last written words were: "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 very much bloodshed it might be done." [December 2nd. 1859.]
Our retrospect would be incomplete did we not recall the events happening in this very City of Worcester, twenty-five years ago to-day. Never were the pulsations of the "Heart of the Commonwealth" more in accord with the heart beats of humanity than on that second of December, 1859. Whatever the thoughts and words of truckling people in other places, here the tolling bell spoke unmistakably to all who heard, the sorrow of those mourned the death of the Great liberator. The Spy of December 3d devotes two columns to an account of the observances in this city. From this description I learn that from ten o'clock, A.M. till noon, and again, from seven to seven and one-half o'clock, P.M., the bells of the Old South, the Central, the Union, and the Third Baptist churches were tolled. During the tolling of the bells in the forenoon, the engines at Merrifield's buildings, and at the card manufactory of T.K. Earle & Co., were stopped, while their places of business were closed, bearing appropriate symbols of regret and mourning. The colored people generally closed their places of employment, and engaged in appropriate religious exercises in Zion's Church in the afternoon. Earlier than had been advertised Mechanics Hall was thronged to its utmost capacity, in the vast audience there being as many women as men. Three sides of the walls bore placards on which were the words:
"Whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle's van,
The fittest place where man can die,
Is where he dies for man."
At half-past seven o'clock Hon. W.W. Rice called the meeting to order, saying: "There is no true man that does not feel his bosom swell with indignation and grief, and pray that God will watch over this land with his especial care. For Virginia has, to-day, executed a man, who, by the judgment of this community, is guilty of no moral crime; but for his fidelity to the principles which his own soul told him were truths and duty. And we are met to hear the words of our best and most eloquent men, and to tender our aid and sympathy to the family—that family in whose veins flows the blood of the martyr, Brown." In closing, Mr. Rice, who had been heard with repeated applause, read the following list of officers:
President: Dea. Ichabod Washburn; Vice-Presidents: Hon. John Milton Earle, Hon. Peter C. Bacon, Hon. George F. Hoar, Hon. W.W. Rice, Hon. Lemuel Williams, Albert Tolman, William T. Merrifield, George M. Rice, Hon. Austin L. Rogers, Edward Earle, John D. Baldwin, George W. Russell, Abram Firth, Joseph P. Hale, Dr. S. Rogers, William R. Hooper, Benjamin Goddard, Joseph Pratt, Harrison Bliss, Thomas Tucker, Rev. Horace James, Rev. Merrill Richardson, Rev. Ebenezer Cutler, Rev. R.R. Shippen, Rev. J.H. Twombly, Rev. George Allen, Rev. T.W. Higginson, Rev. Peter Ross, Rev. William H. Sanford, Rev. Samuel Souther, Dr. Joseph Sargent, Dr. William Workman, Dr. O. Martin, Dr. T.H. Gage, Marcus Barrett, Warren Williams, Thomas L. Nelson, Hartley Williams, Edwin Draper, S.A. Porter, Jonathan Day; Secretaries: Charles E. Stevens, D.A. Goddard, Joseph H. Walker.