To the enraged slave-owners John Brown was a detestable rebel. To the abolitionists he was a martyr. To us he is a true, earnest, but most ill-judging man. His actions were unwise, unwarrantable; but his aims were noble, his self-devotion was heroic.
CHAPTER XI.
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY.
In this year America made her decennial enumeration of her people and their possessions. The industrial greatness which the census revealed was an astonishment, not only to the rest of the world, but even to herself. The slow growth of the old European countries seemed absolute stagnation beside this swift multiplication of men and of beasts, and of wealth in every form.
The three million colonists who had thrown off the British yoke had now increased to thirty-one and a half million! Of these, four million were slaves, owned by three hundred and fifty thousand persons. This great population was assisted in its toils by six million horses and two million working oxen. It owned eight million cows, fifteen million other cattle, twenty-two million sheep, and thirty-three million hogs. The products of the soil were enormous. The cotton crop of this year was close upon one million tons. It had more than doubled within the last ten years. The grain crop was twelve hundred million bushels—figures so large as to pass beyond our comprehension. Tobacco had more than doubled since 1850—until now America actually yielded a supply of five hundred million pounds. There were five thousand miles of canals, and thirty thousand miles of railroad—twenty-two thousand of which were the creation of the preceding ten years. The textile manufactures of the country had reached the annual value of forty million sterling. America had provided for the education of her children by erecting one hundred and thirteen thousand schools and colleges, and employing one hundred and fifty thousand teachers. Her educational institutions enjoyed revenues amounting to nearly seven million sterling, and were attended by five and a half million pupils. Religious instruction was given in fifty-four thousand churches, in which there was accommodation for nineteen million hearers. The daily history of the world was supplied by four thousand newspapers, which circulated annually one thousand million copies.
There belonged to the American people nearly two thousand million acres of land. They had not been able to make any use of the greater part of this enormous heritage. Only four hundred million acres had as yet become in any measure available for the benefit of man. The huge remainder lay unpossessed—its power to give wealth to man growing always greater during the long ages of solitude and neglect. The ownership of this prodigious expanse of fertile land opened to the American people a future of unexampled prosperity. They needed only peace and the exercise of their own vigorous industry. But a sterner task was in store for them.
During the last few years the divisions between North and South had become exceedingly bitter. The North was becoming ever more intolerant of slavery. The unreasoning and passionate South resented with growing fierceness the Northern abhorrence of her favoured institution. In the Senate House one day a member was bending over his desk, busied in writing. His name was Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts. He was well known for the hatred which he bore to slavery, and his power as an orator gave him rank as a leader among those who desired the overthrow of the system. While this senator was occupied with his writing, there walked up to him two men whom South Carolina deemed not unworthy to frame laws for a great people. One of them—a ruffian, although a senator—whose name was Brooks, carried a heavy cane. With this formidable weapon he discharged many blows upon the head of the unsuspecting Sumner, till his victim fell bleeding and senseless to the floor. For this outrage a trifling fine was imposed on Brooks. His admiring constituents eagerly paid the amount. Brooks resigned his seat, and was immediately re-elected. Handsome canes flowed in upon him from all parts of the slave country. The South, in a most deliberate and emphatic manner, recorded its approval of the crime which he had committed.
To such a pass had North and South now come. Sumner vehemently attacking slavery; Brooks vehemently smiting Sumner upon his defenceless head—these men represent with perfect truthfulness the feeling of the two great sections. This cannot last.