Dear Sir: I have just had my attention called to a seeming confliction between the statement I made to Governor Wise and that which I made at the time I received my sentence, regarding my intentions respecting the slaves we took about the Ferry. There need be no such confliction, and a few words of explanation will, I think, be quite sufficient. I had given Governor Wise a full and particular account of that, and when called in court to say whether I had anything further to urge, I was taken wholly by surprise, as I did not expect my sentence before the others. In the hurry of the moment, I forgot much that I had before intended to say, and did not consider the full bearing of what I then said. I intended to convey the idea, that it was my object to place the slaves in a condition to defend their liberties, if they would, without any bloodshed, but not that I intended to run them out of the slave States. I was not aware of any such apparent confliction until my attention was called to it, and I do not suppose that a man in my then circumstances should be superhuman in respect to the exact purport of every word he might utter. What I said to Governor Wise was spoken with all the deliberation I was master of, and was intended for the truth; and what I said in court was equally intended for truth, but required a more full explanation than I then gave. Please make such use of this as you think calculated to correct any wrong impressions I may have given.
Very respectfully yours,
John Brown.
Andrew Hunter, Esq., Present.
Mr. Emerson, in his oration at the funeral services of Abraham Lincoln, held at Concord, April 19th, 1865, saw fit to compare Brown's discredited speech with the greatest orations of time. He said:
His speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion. This and one other American speech, that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, and with no fourth.[472]
But is this comparison really relevant? Will the historian accept Mr. Emerson's comparison of this exhibit of Brown's prevarication, with the immortal words of the immortal Lincoln? The speeches are characteristic of the men who uttered them. Mr. Lincoln did not begin his sublime oration with a falsehood. Brown made a speech October 25th, which was truly an heroic utterance and deserving of a place in history.[473] His words on that occasion, were hurled at his enemies, the "Virginians" whom he addressed. That speech was as characteristic of his splendid courage, as his speech of November 2d, was of his craftiness, for John Brown was as brave as he was crafty.
In a letter to Governor Wise, Mr. Fernando Wood commended him for the firmness and moderation which had characterized the Governor's course in the emergency, and asked, if he dared to "do a bold thing and temper justice with mercy? Have you nerve enough to send Brown to State's Prison instead of hanging him?" He thought Brown should not be hung, "though Seward should, and would be if he could catch him." The Governor replied that he had nerve enough to send him to prison and would do so if he didn't think he ought to be hung and that he would be inexcusable for mitigating his punishment. "I could do it," he said, "without flinching, without a quiver of a muscle against a universal clamor for his life." Continuing he said: "He shall be executed as the law sentences him, and his body shall be delivered over to surgeons, and await the resurrection without a grave in our soil. I have shown him all the mercy which humanity can claim."[474]
Immediately after Brown's incarceration, a movement was started by Mr. Higginson to have Mrs. Brown go to Harper's Ferry to visit her husband. But when the information reached Brown, he peremptorily forbade her coming; wiring Mr. Higginson: "For God's sake don't let Mrs. Brown come. Send her word by telegraph wherever she is."[475]