Brown had not been charged with treason in Kansas, nor was he even under suspicion for "constructive" treason. But Kansas treason was then a fashionable offense in the North, and Brown, of course, worked it with fine effect upon his listeners. The Rev. Theodore Parker suggested to Judge Russell a way of escape for Brown. He wrote:
My Dear Judge—If John Brown falls into the hands of the marshal from Kansas, he is sure either of the gallows or of something yet worse. If I were in his position, I should shoot dead any man who attempted to arrest me for those alleged crimes; then I should be tried by a Massachusetts jury and be acquitted.[242]
Brown at one time expressed his contempt for the gullible people upon whom he imposed. It was when he was in Kansas in 1858, and intended to write a book. He thought the story of his life, as he would write it, would be a good "seller." The title was to be "catchy," if there be such a word. It read:
A brief history of John Brown, otherwise (Old B.) and his family: as connected with Kansas; By one who knows.
It was to be "sold for the benefit of the whole of my family or to promote the cause of Freedom as may hereafter appear." There was a mutuality of interest or a unity of Brown and the cause of Freedom. Whatever he did for the cause was done for the benefit of the family. In writing to his son about this venture he said:
I am certain, from the manner in which I have been pressed to narrate, and the greedy swallowing everywhere of what I have told, and complaints of the newspapers voluntarily made of my backwardness to gratify the public, that the book would find a ready sale.[243]
But his sons—John and Jason—disapproved of the venture: they were reactionaries; they thought it best to leave well enough alone, and shied at a proposal to skate upon ice so treacherous as they knew this departure to be. John said:[244] "But many a man has committed his greatest blunder when trying to write a book."
While at the Russell home Brown evolved a scheme, characteristic of his craftiness, which he launched in a highly dramatic and effective manner. The paper was named:
OLD BROWN'S FAREWELL
To the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker Hill Monuments, Charter Oaks, and, Uncle Tom's Cabbins.