"The soul of John Brown was the inspiration of the Union armies in the emancipation war; and it will be the inspiration of all men in the present and the distant future who may revolt against tyranny and oppression; because he dared to be a traitor to the government that he might be loyal to humanity."
Dr. Winkley agrees in this statement of Robinson; and his portrayal of the man as he was in the midst of surprises and responsibilities, but ever the same intrepid and resourceful leader, will add a new picture to those we already had of John Brown in action. Active or in chains, in the battlefield or in his Virginia prison, he always commanded attention, and received the applause of those who knew him.
The verdict of the world has confirmed this praise; and of all the men connected with the dark and bloody story of Kansas, from 1854 till the close of the Civil War, Brown's name is the most widely known. Blame has been mingled with praise; but the involuntary tribute paid, by the natural human heart, to invincible courage and unwearied self-sacrifice will insure the prevalence of praise over blame. Those who cannot approve all his acts, as Dr. Winkley cannot, are yet convinced generally of the high purpose and grand result of his arduous life. Richard Mendenhall, a Kansas Quaker, who knew him well but "could not sanction his mode of procedure," yet said, after Brown's death in Virginia:
"Men are not always to be judged so much by their actions as by their motives. I believe John Brown was a good man, and that he will be remembered for good in time long hence to come."
Quite recently an English author, William Stevens, writing a history of slavery and emancipation, has occasion to name John Brown, and the warmth of his eulogy does not satisfy the cool judgment of that most reflective journal, the London Spectator, which says:
"Mr. Stevens asks if Brown did not see the forces moving towards abolition more clearly than did his friends who protested against the daring of his schemes: yet he emphasizes too much, surely, the forlorn recklessness of the man's methods. But a more fearless, resolute, and cooler-headed man never lived. His family life, the devotion of his own flesh and blood to him, and his tenderness were indications of a character intensely human, but also of a man who had counted the cost and knew that the individual must yield to the race. He lit, not a candle, but a powder-magazine; and his last words prove that he foresaw, as plainly as man ever saw sunrise follow dawn, that blood, and blood alone, would loosen the shackles of the slave."
Events, in fact, followed the track which Brown pointed out, and with a swiftness that startled even such as accepted his clear insight of the national situation. There was something prophetic in his perception of the future; he could not see well what was directly before him, but of the consequences of his action, and of that of other men, he had the most piercing and sagacious view. Such men appear on earth but rarely; when they come, it is as martyrs and seers. Fatal are their perceptions, and to themselves as well as to the order of things they subvert. But it is more fatal to disregard the warning they give. Their remedy for existing ills, sharp as it must be, is for the healing of the nations and for the relief of man's estate.
F. B. Sanborn.
Concord, January, 1905.