At 2:15 the jury returned their verdict of guilty. It was received in respectful silence; no demonstration of satisfaction or evidence of elation greeted the announcement. Of its reception by the people in waiting Mr. Villard says: "It is to the credit of the Charlestown crowd and of Virginia that not a single sound of elation or triumph assailed the dignity of the court, when the jury sealed Brown's doom. In solemn silence the crowd heard Mr. Chilton make his formal motion for an arrest of judgment, because of errors in the indictment and in the verdict, and it filed out equally silent when Judge Parker ordered the motion to stand over until the next day."
One person was dissatisfied with Brown's trial; not the prisoner—for he acknowledged the deep sense of his obligation, to both Court and counsel, for the treatment he had received—but Mr. James Redpath. He said:
I do not intend to pollute my pages with any sketch of the lawyers' pleas. They were able, without doubt, and erudite, and ingenious; but they were founded, nevertheless, on an atrocious assumption. For they assumed that the statutes of the State were just; and, therefore if the prisoner should be proven guilty of offending against them, that it was right that he should suffer the penalty they inflict. This doctrine every Christian heart must scorn; John Brown, at least, despised it; and so also, to be faithful to his memory, and my own instincts, must I.[465]
On November 1st the Court heard Mr. Chilton's motion in arrest of judgment; reserving its decision upon it until the next day. During the afternoon of November 2d, Brown was brought into court for the final scene of the trial. After Mr. Chilton's motion had been overruled. Brown was ordered to rise, and when asked by the clerk if he had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon him, he delivered the following address:[466]
I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted,—the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.
I have another objection: and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case),—had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends,—either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class,—and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This 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 to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with 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!
Let me say one word further.
I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous that I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated from the first what was my intention, and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.