Chapter Thirteen
“Give them arms, Mr. Lincoln!”
The news of Harper’s Ferry stunned Washington. “A United States arsenal attacked—Slaves stampeding!” “The madman from Kansas run amuck!” “The slaves are armed!” Panic seized the South, and Capitol Hill rocked and reeled with the shock.
Jack brought home copies of the New York Herald, and Amelia read how the old man lay bleeding on a pallet with his two sons cold and still at his side. Governor Wise, leaning over to condemn, had drawn back before a courage, fortitude and simple faith which silenced him.
“There is an eternity behind and an eternity before,” John Brown had said, and his voice did not falter. “This little speck in the center, however long, is comparatively but a minute. The difference between your tenure and mine is trifling, and I therefore tell you to be prepared. I am prepared. You have a heavy responsibility, and it behooves you to meet it. You may dispose of me easily, but this question is still to be settled ... the end is not yet.”
“Why did he let the train through?” people asked. “Is he crazy?”
“I came here to liberate slaves.” All his explanations were so simple. “I have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate; but I think the crowd have treated me badly.... Yesterday I could have killed whom I chose; but I had no desire to kill any person, and would not have killed a man had they not tried to kill me and my men. I could have sacked and burned the town, but did not; I have treated the persons whom I took as hostages kindly. If I had succeeded in running off slaves this time, I could have raised twenty times as many men as I have now, for a similar expedition. But I have failed.”
An old man had been stopped—a crazy old man, whose equally crazy followers were killed or captured. It was over and very little harm done. An unpleasant incident to be soon forgotten.
But no one would have done with it. Papers throughout the country sowed John Brown’s words into every town and hamlet; preachers repeated them in their pulpits; people gathered in small knots on the roadside and shouted them defiantly or whispered them cautiously; black men and women everywhere bowed their heads and wept hot, scalding tears. And William Lloyd Garrison, the man of peace, the “non-resister,” said, “How marvelous has been the change in public opinion during thirty years of moral agitation. Ten years ago there were thousands who could not endure the slightest word of rebuke of the South; now they can swallow John Brown whole and his rifle in the bargain.”
The old man never lost his calm. Frenzy shook every slave state in the Union. Rumors spread and multiplied. Black and white men were seized, beaten, and killed. Slaves disappeared. A hue and cry arose.