Old John Brown, the man whose soul is marching on

by Walter Hawkins

Blow ye the trumpet, blow
The gladly solemn sound:
Let all the nations know
To earth's remotest bound.
The year of Jubilee is come,
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

Then, ceasing, he would tell her with heart brimming with tenderness of poor little black children who were slaves. What were slaves? she wanted to know. And he was ready enough to tell her of those who were riven from father and mother and sold for base coin, whom in some States it was illegal to teach their A B C, but quite lawful to flog; and then the daughter would be asked, by way of application to his moving discourse, if she would like some of them to come some time and share her home and food.

Thus continually to that rising family there was unfolded the horror of the slavery system. That horror had faded in the minds of many in the Northern States whose ancestry had held freedom dear; while in the Southern States, for the most part, the possession of your fellow creatures as if they were so much farm stock had become too familiar a feature of common life to evoke any conscientious misgiving, much less shame. The enormous additions to the cotton trade had made slave labour increasingly gainful, and the capital invested in this living property was immense. Careful rearing of slaves for the market as well as their purchase brought wealth to many, and fierce was the resentment when any one publicly criticized the institution. There was by no means an absence of humane regard far the wellbeing of the negroes; a kind of patriarchal tenderness towards them was distinctly 'good form.' But there was the deadly fact that they were human goods and chattels, with no civil rights worth mentioning—for laws in their defence were practically worthless, seeing they could not appear as witnesses in the court. Public whipping-houses were provided for the expeditious correction of the refractory, and a mere suspicion of intent to escape was legal justification for the use of the branding-irons upon their flesh. If they did contrive to escape there were dogs bred on purpose to hunt them down. If the slave resisted his master's will he might be slain, and the law would not graze the master's head. Domestic security he had none, for wife might be wrenched from husband or child from mother according to the state of the market. And, strangest of all to our ears, the pulpits of the South extolled slavery as appointed of Heaven, and solemnly quoting the prophecy that Ham should be the servant of his brethren, the pulpiteer would ask who would dare to resist the will of God Most High? Not content to hold their views tenaciously, the slave-holders and their followers dealt out threatenings and slaughter to all who by lip or pen opposed them. The household of Brown pondered all this invasion of the great natural right of freedom, and with one accord pined for the opportunity of checking, or, it might be, ending it.

It is on record how they were taught to repeat their father's vow. It was in 1839, when they were living at Franklin, Ohio, that he called them around him, and on bended knee declared the secret mission with which, he believed, High Heaven had charged him—to labour by word or sword, by any means opportunity might offer, for the overthrow of slavery, which he believed to be the very citadel of evil in America. 'Swear, children, swear,' said he; and from that little group in the log house there went up an appeal for a blessing upon their oath—an oath which they could truly protest was likely to bring nought to them but peril, disaster, and, perchance, death, but which they were well assured must bring glory to Eternal God. And so their oath was registered in heaven.

For many years it was only in indirect ways they could promote their end. Early they gave themselves to help the tentative endeavours that were often on foot to educate those slaves who did make good their escape, and especially to train them to independent agriculture, so that evidence might be afforded that they could use their liberty to good purpose, and become useful citizens. The Browns were always active in promoting such apprenticeship to freedom.

Two scenes reveal the temper of this united house. The first is at Franklin, where in the Congregational Church there are revival services being conducted, in which the Episcopalians and Methodists are uniting with their neighbours under the guidance of a fervent evangelist. The folk are greatly wrought upon, and are looking for an outpouring of divine grace. Among the large assemblies are many coloured folk, some free and some runaway slaves. The darkies are directed by judicious deacons to seats reserved for them near the door, where they will not vex the eyes of the worshipping whites. John Brown has swift argument within him as in his boyish days: 'Has God—their Father and ours—set any line betwixt His children? Is He a respecter of persons? And, if not, can we expect reasonably an outpouring of His grace while in this ungracious manner we are thwarting Him? We shall bar the blessing we seek.' Rising to his feet, he denounces the distinction in God's House, then, turning to his own family, who were accustomed to obey him, and whom he knew agreed with him, he bade them rise and take the seats near the door while the negroes came and took theirs near the front. Nothing loth, both parties did as they were told, to the confusion of the pious community. Next day pastor and deacons waited upon the refractory member—John Brown—to 'labour with him,' as the old church chronicle has it, upon his grave indecorum. But they found themselves belaboured with passages from Old Testament and New, and sundry stout doctrines of the Christian faith, till they retired discomfited, in their hearts delivering him to Satan that he might learn not to blaspheme. But Satan would have none of him, we are sure.

Another instance of the same devotion to the cause of freedom belongs to rather later days when they had removed to Springfield, Massachusetts. There they lived with their wonted simplicity, but it had been the fond design of mother and daughter to furnish the parlour in due course. The moment had arrived when the domestic finances seemed to allow of this modest luxury, but already John Brown had designs of another removal to North Elba, New York, where an estate was being occupied by escaped slaves under the patronage of Gerrit Smith, a wealthy Abolitionist. At this juncture he calls his family together and asks for their mind as to whether they should now furnish the parlour with their savings or retain them for the help of these black settlers who require clothes and other equipment as they start their new life of independence. The blood of the Browns flows as one stream, and the ready response of all is 'Save the money, father.'

His favourite books were well known by the children—JOSEPHUS, Plutarch's LIVES, NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS, LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, Baxter's SAINTS' REST, Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and Henry ON MEEKNESS. What a significant medley of peace and war—the wolf and the lamb—Napoleon and Henry on Meekness side by side! But dearest ever was the Book which had been the oracle in his father's house—itself the Book of battles and yet the gospel of peace, the sacred charter of man's liberties and yet the holy statute book for man's government—the Bible. Swift paternal correction was there for any misquotation from that Book; it was a Book not to be lightly paraphrased, but LEARNED AND OBEYED. In his own Bible there are pencillings that reveal at once the secret springs of his strange, and to outward seeming, erratic life. Thus these passages are marked: 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.' 'Whoso stoppeth his ear at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry and shall not be heard.' 'Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker.' 'He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.'

Above all passages, perhaps, was this quoted—Isa. lviii. 6: 'Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?' If ever man kept that chivalrous fast before the Lord it was John Brown.

The last stage in what we may call the long preparation of John Brown for the prominent labours of his life reveals still further how the passionate love of the cause of liberty burned as a fire in the bones of this family. They were attracted by the proposal of Gerrit Smith, to celebrate the passing of West Indian Emancipation with the offer of 100,000 acres of his wild land in the north of New York State for coloured families to settle upon. Eager for the success of the experiment, Brown and his sons were prepared to start pioneering in the new region, so as to be near at hand to encourage and assist the new settlers. Prepared to choose their location as they deemed the exigencies of the great cause demanded, they settled at North Elba in what was then a wilderness in Essex county, and commenced to live a life of sterner simplicity than before, hewing in the forests, and clearing with axe and fire the land which they then proceeded to cultivate, obtaining food and clothes as those must who have neither store nor tailor near. There, with one room beneath that served by day, and two rooms overhead that served by night, they lived, and not discontentedly, for if there was little space or grandeur within there was plenty without; and John Brown, who was no mere conqueror of Nature, but a lover of her beauty, revelled in the glories of that untamed land, with its mountains wooded to their summits, with its frowning gorges and rushing torrents and its richly scented air. Best of all there were black settlers around whom they could help and thus forward their life-work, proving that the race they vowed should be free could appreciate and justify the boon.