The facts are briefly as follows:—On the 17th of October, 1859, the country was startled with the announcement that a party of armed men, whites and blacks, had entered the village of Harper’s Ferry, Va., taken possession of the United States armory at that place, shot two or three whites, placed guards on the railroad bridge, and stopped the passenger trains of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
The President promptly dispatched a detachment of marines to the spot. The insurrectionists were found to number about twenty white men and negroes, under the leadership of the notorious Kansas Free-State man, John Ossawatomie Brown. After some time spent in parley, made for the purpose of saving a number of prominent citizens who were held prisoners by Brown within the enclosures of the United States Armory, the marines made an attack, beat down the gates, and took all who were not killed prisoners.
Among the latter was Brown himself, who had received a number of severe wounds. Brown confessed that his object was to liberate and run off all the slaves in the adjoining counties of Virginia and Maryland. At a farm-house which Brown had hired a few miles from Harper’s Ferry, were found ammunition and arms, consisting of a large number of Sharpe’s rifles, revolvers, pikes and other implements of war, together with a great amount of correspondence, consisting of letters of Gerrit Smith and Fred Douglas. During the whole affair, there were killed ten of the insurrectionists, six citizens and one United States marine, and a number on both sides were wounded.
Brown was found guilty of treason and conspiracy against the United States on the 2d of November, was sentenced to be hung, which sentence was carried into effect on the 2d of December, 1859.
It has since been discovered that the following is a portion of the plans of abolitionists, matured in Kansas by Brown and others, and which he attempted in part to carry out:—
“1. To make war (openly or secretly, as circumstances may dictate) upon the property of the slaveholders and their abettors—not for its destruction, if that can be easily avoided, but to convert it to the use of the slaves. If it cannot be thus converted, then we advise its destruction. Teach the slaves to burn their master’s buildings, to kill their cattle and horses, to conceal or destroy farming utensils, to abandon labor in seed time and harvest, and let crops perish. Make slavery unprofitable in this way, if it can be done in no other.
“2. To make slaveholders objects of derision and contempt, by flogging them whenever they shall be guilty of flogging their slaves.
“3. To risk no general insurrection until we of the North go to your assistance, or you are sure of success without our aid.
“4. To cultivate the friendship and confidence of the slaves; to consult with them as to their rights and interests, and the means of promoting them; to show your interest in their welfare, and your readiness to assist them; let them know that they have your sympathy, and it will give them courage, self-respect and ambition, and make men of them—infinitely better men to live by, as neighbors and friends, than the indolont, arrogant, selfish, heartless, domineering robbers and tyrants who now keep both yourselves and the slaves in subjection, and look with contempt upon all who live by honest labor.
“5. To change your political institutions as soon as possible, and, in the meantime, give never a vote to a slaveholder; pay no taxes to their government, if you can either resist or evade them; as witnesses and jurors, give no testimony and no verdicts in support of any slaveholding claims; perform no military, patrol or police service; mob slaveholding courts, jails and sheriffs; do nothing, in short, for sustaining slavery, but everything you safely can, publicly and privately, for its overthrow.”