H. B. Hurd, the Chairman of the Committee, had suspected the purpose back of his pretended scheme for operations in Kansas. He put to Brown the pointblank question and demanded a straight answer.
"If you get these guns and the money you desire, will you invade
Missouri or any slave territory?"
The old man's reply was characteristic. He spoke with a quiet scorn.
"I am no adventurer. You all know me. You are acquainted with my history. You know what I have done in Kansas. I do not expose my plans. No one knows them but myself, except perhaps one. I will not be interrogated. If you wish to give me anything, I want you to give it freely. I have no other purpose but to serve the cause of Liberty."
His answer was not illuminating. It contained nothing the Committee wished to know. The statement that they knew him was a figure of speech. They had read partisan reports of his fighting and his suffering in Kansas—through his own letters, principally. How much truth these letters contained was something they wished very much to find out. He had given no light.
He declared that they knew what he had done in Kansas. This was the one point on which they needed most light.
The biggest event in the history of Kansas was the deed on the Pottawattomie. In the fierce political campaign that was in progress its effects had been neutralized by denials. Brown had denied his guilt on every occasion.
Yet as they studied his strange personality more than one member of the Committee began to suspect him as the only man in the West capable of the act.
The Committee refused to vote the rifles and compromised on the money by making a qualification that would make the gift of no service. They voted the appropriation, "in aid of Captain John Brown in any defensive measures that may become necessary." He was authorized to draw five hundred dollars when he needed it for this purpose.
The failure rankled in the old man's heart and he once more poured out the vials of his wrath on all politicians,—North and South.