Since Forbes's letters to Brown deal directly, and without dissimulation, with the matters under consideration, it is exceedingly regrettable that they have been withheld from publication. They would expose the flimsy fictions which have been put forth concerning the fictitious company of "volunteer-regulars": and that Forbes had been employed as a drill-master for it. Also, it is especially regrettable that his letter of February 23d has been suppressed. For there can be no doubt that it would disclose their plans for the invasion; the means they relied upon for success, and the broad lines which they expected to operate upon. It contained, in all probability, a discussion, from Forbes's point of view, of the insurrection; of armies and conquest; of government, and relations with foreign States; of northern conventions, and of international complications. This correspondence was suppressed, doubtless, because the publication of it would dissipate the theory that it was an altruistic "Foray into Virginia" that Brown had in view, or an illogical guerrilla "raid."
The passing of Forbes came with an "adroit and stinging" reply from Dr. Howe to his letter of May 14th, who, among other things said: "I infer from your language that you have obtained (in confidence) some information concerning an expedition which you think to be commendable, provided you could manage it, but which you will betray and denounce if he does not give it up! You are, sir, the guardian of your own honor—but I trust that for your children's sake, at least, you will never let your passion lead you to a course that might make them blush."[287]
[CHAPTER X]
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
Fear made the Gods; audacity, has made kings.
—Crebillon
Before leaving Springdale for the East, Brown forwarded the ordnance stores to his son John, at Conneaut, Ohio, who carefully concealed them. Proceeding to Rochester, New York, he stopped at the home of Mr. Douglass, where he remained until February 15th. From there he commenced his correspondence with the men whom he hoped he could induce to advance the necessary money to float, or to initiate, the revolution; and it was at the Douglass home that he wrote and revised the constitution for the Provisional Government which he intended to attempt to set up in the Southern States. Mr. Douglass stated to Mr. Sanborn[288] that he had a copy of this Constitution in Brown's own hand writing, "prepared by himself at my house."
February 2d, he wrote to the Rev. Theodore Parker that he had nearly perfected arrangements for carrying out an important measure in which the "world had a deep interest, as well as Kansas," and that he only lacked from five hundred to eight hundred dollars to enable him "to do it." Also that it was the "same object for which he had asked for secret service money last fall"; that he had written to some of their mutual friends concerning the matter but that none of them understood his "views as well as you do"; and that he could not explain them without their committing themselves further than he knew of their doing, closing with the question, "Do you know some parties whom you could induce to give their abolition theories a thoroughly practical shape?... Do you think any of my Garrisonian friends at Boston, Worcester, or any other place, can be induced to supply a little 'straw' if I will absolutely make 'bricks'?"[289]
He wrote letters in a similar vein to Gerrit Smith, to Mr. Stearns, to Mr. Sanborn, and to Mr. Higginson, and sought to have a meeting with these gentlemen at Mr. Smith's home on February 23d, at which he intended to submit to them as much of his plans as he thought it advisable for them to know, for their consideration and approval. Mr. Sanborn alone responded to his call; he arrived at Peterboro on Monday evening, February 22d. Brown had arrived there on the preceding Thursday, and had gone over the scheme with Mr. Smith. During the night of the 22d, Mr. Sanborn says, the whole outline of the campaign in Virginia was laid before the little council. "In astonishment and almost in dismay," they listened to the reading of the constitution that he had prepared for the government of the territory which he proposed to conquer; and to a recital of the details of the hazardous adventure. In the discussion, he explained his "plan of organization, of fortification, of occupation, and of settlement in the South" and of his "retreat through the North," if retreat became necessary. He had foreseen every difficulty they could suggest, and had provided for it "in some manner." And then he had "God on his side." "If God be for us who can be against us." All he asked for, in addition to the equipment which he then had, was "but eight hundred dollars, and would think himself rich with a thousand." With that he would open his campaign in the spring, and he had no doubt that the enterprise "would pay" as he said.[290]