The constitution adopted by the convention was an instrument designed for the government of a band of isolated people fighting for liberty. The preamble said:
“Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion—the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination—in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence:
“Therefore, we, citizens of the United States, and the oppressed people who, by a recent decision of the Supreme Court, are declared to have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, together with all other people degraded by the laws thereof, do, for the time being, ordain and establish ourselves the following provisional constitution and ordinances, the better to protect our persons, property, lives, and liberties, and to govern our actions.”[[189]]
The Declaration of Independence referred to was probably designed to be adopted July 4, 1858, when, as originally planned, the blow was to be actually struck. It was a paraphrase of the original declaration and ended by saying:
“Declaring that we will serve them no longer as slaves, knowing that the ‘Laborer is worthy of his hire,’ We therefore, the Representatives of the circumscribed citizens of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme Judge of the World, for the rectitude of our intentions, Do in the name, & by authority of the oppressed Citizens of the Slave States, Solemnly publish and Declare: that the Slaves are, & of right ought to be as free & as independent as the unchangeable Law of God requires that All Men Shall be. That they are absolved from all allegiance to those Tyrants, who still persist in forcibly subjecting them to perpetual ‘Bondage,’ and that all friendly connection between them and such Tyrants, is & ought to be totally dissolved, And that as free and independent citizens of these states, they have a perfect right, a sufficient and just cause, to defend themselves against the Tyrrany of their oppressors. To solicit aid from & ask the protection of all true friends of humanity and reform, of whatever nation, & wherever found; A right to contract all Alliances, & to do all other acts and things which free independent Citizens may of right do. And for the support of the Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence: We mutually pledge to each other, Our Lives, and Our sacred Honor.”[[190]]
The constitution consisted of forty-eight articles. All persons of mature age were admitted to membership and there was established a congress with one house of five to ten members, a president and vice-president and a court of five members, each one of whom held circuit courts. All these officials were to unite in selecting a commander-in-chief, treasurer, secretaries, and other officials. All property was to be in common and no salaries were to be paid. All persons were to labor. All indecent behavior was forbidden: “The marriage relation shall be at all times respected, and families kept together, as far as possible; and broken families encouraged to reunite, and intelligence offices established for that purpose. Schools and churches established, as soon as may be, for the purpose of religious and other instructions; and the first day of the week regarded as a day of rest, and appropriated to moral and religions instruction and improvement, relief of the suffering, instruction of the young and ignorant, and the encouragement of personal cleanliness; nor shall any person be required on that day to perform ordinary manual labor, unless in extremely urgent cases.”[[191]] All persons were to carry arms but not concealed. There were special provisions for the capture of prisoners, and protection of their persons and property.
John Brown was well pleased with his work and wrote home: “Had a good Abolition convention here, from different parts, on the 8th and 10th inst. Constitution slightly amended and adopted, and society organized.”[[192]]
Just now as everything seemed well started, came disquieting news from the East. Forbes had been there since November, growing more and more poverty-stricken and angry, and his threats, hints and visits were becoming frequent and annoying. He complained to Senator Wilson, to Charles Sumner, to Hale, Seward and Horace Greeley, and to the Boston coterie. He could not understand why these leaders of the movement against slavery, as he supposed, should leave the real power in the hands of John Brown, and neglect an experienced soldier like himself after raising false expectations. John Brown had dealt with Forbes gently but firmly, and had sought to conciliate him, but in vain. Brown was apparently determined to outwit him by haste; he had written his Massachusetts friends to join him at the Chatham Convention, but Sanborn and Howe had already received threatening letters from Forbes which alarmed them. He evidently had careful information of Brown’s movements and was bent on making trouble. He probably was at this time in the confidence of McCune Smith and the able Negro group of New York who had developed a not unnatural distrust of whites, and a desire to foster race pride. Using information thus obtained, Forbes sought to put pressure on Republican leaders to organize more effective warfare on slavery, and to discredit John Brown. Sanborn wrote hastily: “It looks as if the project must, for the present, be deferred, for I find by reading Forbes’s epistles to the doctor that he knows the details of the plan, and even knows (what very few do) that the doctor, Mr. Stearns, and myself are informed of it. How he got this knowledge is a mystery. He demands that Hawkins [John Brown] be dismissed as agent, and himself or some other be put in his place, threatening otherwise to make the business public.”[[193]] Gerrit Smith concluded, “Brown must go no further.” But Higginson wisely demurred. “I regard any postponement,” he said, “as simply abandoning the project; for if we give it up now, at the command or threat of H. F., it will be the same next year. The only way is to circumvent the man somehow (if he cannot be restrained in his malice). When the thing is well started, who cares what he says?”[[194]]
Further efforts were made to conciliate Forbes but he wrote wildly: “I have been grossly defrauded in the name of humanity and anti-slavery.... I have for years labored in the anti-slavery cause, without wanting or thinking of a recompense. Though I have made the least possible parade of my work, it has nevertheless not been entirely without fruit.... Patience and mild measures having failed, I reluctantly have recourse to harshness. Let them not flatter themselves that I shall eventually become weary and shall drop the subject; it is as yet quite at its beginning.”[[195]]
“To go on in face of this is madness,” wrote Sanborn, and John Brown was urged to come to New York to meet Stearns and Howe. Brown had already been delayed nearly a month at Chatham by this trouble, but he obeyed the summons. Sanborn says: “When, about May 20th, Mr. Stearns met Brown in New York, it was arranged that hereafter the custody of the Kansas rifles should be in Brown’s hands as the agent, not of this committee, but of Mr. Stearns alone. It so happened that Gerrit Smith, who seldom visited Boston, was coming there late in May.... He arrived and took rooms at the Revere House, where, on the 24th of May, 1858, the secret committee (organized in March, and consisting of Smith, Parker, Howe, Higginson, Stearns, and Sanborn) held a meeting to consider the situation. It had already been decided to postpone the attack, and the arms had been placed under a temporary interdict, so that they could only be used, for the present, in Kansas. The questions remaining were whether Brown should be required to go to Kansas at once, and what amount of money should be raised for him in the future. Of the six members of the committee only one (Higginson) was absent.... It was unanimously resolved that Brown ought to go to Kansas at once.”