LUCRETIA MOTT PROTECTING THE NEGRO DANGERFIELD FROM THE MOB IN PHILADELPHIA.
When Daniel Dangerfield, a fugitive slave, was tried in Philadelphia, Lucretia Mott sat during all his trial by the side of the prisoner. When the trial was ended Dangerfield was set at liberty, and Mrs. Mott walked out of the court-room and through the mob which threatened to lynch him, her hand on the colored man's arm, and that little hand was a sure protector, for no one dared to touch him.
This decision was received with delight in the South and repudiated in the North. The contention there was that the Constitution regarded slaves as "persons held to labor" and not as property, and that they were property only by State law.
JOHN BROWN'S RAID.
While the chasm between the North and South was rapidly growing wider, a startling occurrence took place. John Brown was a fanatic who believed Heaven had appointed him its agent for freeing the slaves in the South. He was one of the most active partisans on the side of freedom in the civil war in Kansas, and had been brooding over the subject for years, until his belief in his mission became unshakable.
Brown's plan was simple, being that of invading Virginia with a small armed force and calling upon the slaves to rise. He believed they would flock around him, and he fixed upon Harper's Ferry as the point to begin his crusade.
Secretly gathering a band of twenty men, in the month of October, 1859, he held them ready on the Maryland shore. Late on Sunday night, the 16th, they crossed the railway bridge over the Potomac, seized the Federal armory at Harper's Ferry, stopped all railroad trains, arrested a number of citizens, set free such slaves as they came across, and held complete possession of the town for twenty-four hours.
Brown acted with vigor. He threw out pickets, cut the telegraph wires, and sent word to the slaves that their day of deliverance had come and they were summoned to rise. By this time the citizens had themselves risen, and, attacking the invaders, drove them into the armory, from which they maintained fire until it became clear that they must succumb. Several made a break, but were shot down. Brown retreated to an engine-house with his wounded and prisoners and held his assailants at bay all through Monday and the night following.
News having been sent to Washington, Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived Tuesday morning with a force of marines and land troops. The local militia of Virginia had also been called out. The situation of Brown was hopeless, but he refused to surrender. Colonel Lee managed matters with such skill that only one of his men was shot, while Brown was wounded several times, his two sons killed, and others slain. The door of the engine-house was battered in and the desperate men overpowered. The enraged citizens would have rended them to pieces, had they been allowed, but Colonel Lee protected and turned them over to the civil authorities. Brown and his six companions were placed on trial, found guilty of what was certainly an unpardonable crime, and hanged on the 2d of December, 1859.
Many in the South believed that the act of Brown was planned and supported by leading Republicans, but such was not the fact, and they were as earnest in condemnation of the mad proceeding as the extreme slavery men, but John Brown's raid served to fan the spark of civil war that was already kindled and fast growing into a flame.