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diff --git a/2567-h/2567-h.htm b/2567-h/2567-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b8b2cd --- /dev/null +++ b/2567-h/2567-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1468 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Plea for Captain John Brown, by Henry David Thoreau</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; +line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 175%; margin-top: 2em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Plea for Captain John Brown, by Henry David Thoreau</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Plea for Captain John Brown</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry David Thoreau</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 2001 [eBook #2567]<br /> +[Most recently updated: January 21, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Jason Filley and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN ***</div> + +<h1> A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN </h1> + +<h2> By Henry David Thoreau </h2> + +<h4>[Read to the citizens of Concord, Mass.,<br/> +Sunday Evening, October 30, 1859.]</h4> + +<p> +<br/><br/> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p> +I trust that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to force my +thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, +I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the +newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and +actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy +with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose +to do. +</p> + +<p> +First, as to his history. I will endeavor to omit, as much as possible, what +you have already read. I need not describe his person to you, for probably most +of you have seen and will not soon forget him. I am told that his grandfather, +John Brown, was an officer in the Revolution; that he himself was born in +Connecticut about the beginning of this century, but early went with his father +to Ohio. I heard him say that his father was a contractor who furnished beef to +the army there, in the war of 1812; that he accompanied him to the camp, and +assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of military life, more, +perhaps, than if he had been a soldier, for he was often present at the +councils of the officers. Especially, he learned by experience how armies are +supplied and maintained in the field—a work which, he observed, requires +at least as much experience and skill as to lead them in battle. He said that +few persons had any conception of the cost, even the pecuniary cost, of firing +a single bullet in war. He saw enough, at any rate, to disgust him with a +military life, indeed to excite in him a great abhorrence of it; so much so, +that though he was tempted by the offer of some petty office in the army, when +he was about eighteen, he not only declined that, but he also refused to train +when warned, and was fined for it. He then resolved that he would never have +anything to do with any war, unless it were a war for liberty. +</p> + +<p> +When the troubles in Kansas began, he sent several of his sons thither to +strengthen the party of the Free State men, fitting them out with such weapons +as he had; telling them that if the troubles should increase, and there should +be need of him, he would follow, to assist them with his hand and counsel. +This, as you all know, he soon after did; and it was through his agency, far +more than any other’s, that Kansas was made free. +</p> + +<p> +For a part of his life he was a surveyor, and at one time he was engaged in +wool-growing, and he went to Europe as an agent about that business. There, as +everywhere, he had his eyes about him, and made many original observations. He +said, for instance, that he saw why the soil of England was so rich, and that +of Germany (I think it was) so poor, and he thought of writing to some of the +crowned heads about it. It was because in England the peasantry live on the +soil which they cultivate, but in Germany they are gathered into villages, at +night. It is a pity that he did not make a book of his observations. +</p> + +<p> +I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, +and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery he deemed to be wholly +opposed to these, and he was its determined foe. +</p> + +<p> +He was by descent and birth a New England farmer, a man of great common sense, +deliberate and practical as that class is, and tenfold more so. He was like the +best of those who stood at Concord Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on +Bunker Hill, only he was firmer and higher principled than any that I have +chanced to hear of as there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. +Ethan Allen and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were +rangers in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face their +country’s foes, but he had the courage to face his country herself, when +she was in the wrong. A Western writer says, to account for his escape from so +many perils, that he was concealed under a “rural exterior”; as if, +in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights, wear a citizen’s +dress only. +</p> + +<p> +He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater as she is. He +was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he phrased it, “I know +no more of grammar than one of your calves.” But he went to the great +university of the West, where he sedulously pursued the study of Liberty, for +which he had early betrayed a fondness, and having taken many degrees, he +finally commenced the public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. +Such were <i>his humanities</i>, and not any study of grammar. He would have +left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a falling man. +</p> + +<p> +He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, +see nothing at all—the Puritans. It would be in vain to kill him. He +died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? +Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New +England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their +forefathers’ day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They +were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, +straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, +not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates. +</p> + +<p> +“In his camp,” as one has recently written, and as I have myself +heard him state, “he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals was +suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war. ‘I would +rather,’ said he, ‘have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera, +all together in my camp, than a man without principle.... It is a mistake, sir, +that our people make, when they think that bullies are the best fighters, or +that they are the fit men to oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good +principles,—God-fearing men,—men who respect themselves, and with a +dozen of them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford +ruffians.’” He said that if one offered himself to be a soldier +under him, who was forward to tell what he could or would do, if he could only +get sight of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him. +</p> + +<p> +He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom he would +accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in whom he had perfect +faith. When he was here, some years ago, he showed to a few a little manuscript +book,—his “orderly book” I think he called +it,—containing the names of his company in Kansas, and the rules by which +they bound themselves; and he stated that several of them had already sealed +the contract with their blood. When some one remarked that, with the addition +of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that +he would have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found +one who could fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the +United States army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and +evening, nevertheless. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at +your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare +hard, as became a soldier or one who was fitting himself for difficult +enterprises, a life of exposure. +</p> + +<p> +A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a +transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,—that was what +distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse, but carrying +out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not overstate anything, but +spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly, how, in his speech here, he +referred to what his family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the +least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. +Also referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring +away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and +meaning, “They had a perfect right to be hung.” He was not in the +least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, +had no need to invent anything but to tell the simple truth, and communicate +his own resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence in +Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the speeches of +Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king. +</p> + +<p> +As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when scarcely a +man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any direct route, at least +without having his arms taken from him, he, carrying what imperfect guns and +other weapons he could collect, openly and slowly drove an ox-cart through +Missouri, apparently in the capacity of a surveyor, with his surveying compass +exposed in it, and so passed unsuspected, and had ample opportunity to learn +the designs of the enemy. For some time after his arrival he still followed the +same profession. When, for instance, he saw a knot of the ruffians on the +prairie, discussing, of course, the single topic which then occupied their +minds, he would, perhaps, take his compass and one of his sons, and proceed to +run an imaginary line right through the very spot on which that conclave had +assembled, and when he came up to them, he would naturally pause and have some +talk with them, learning their news, and, at last, all their plans perfectly; +and having thus completed his real survey he would resume his imaginary one, +and run on his line till he was out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all, with a price set +upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities, exasperated +against him, he accounted for it by saying, “It is perfectly well +understood that I will not be taken.” Much of the time for some years he +has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was +the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But +though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes +commonly did not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town +where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some +business, without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for said he, +“No little handful of men were willing to undertake it, and a large body +could not be got together in season.” +</p> + +<p> +As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts about it. It was evidently +far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy, Mr. Vallandigham, is +compelled to say, that “it was among the best planned and executed +conspiracies that ever failed.” +</p> + +<p> +Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show a want of +good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human beings, and walk off +with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not months, at a leisurely pace, +through one State after another, for half the length of the North, conspicuous +to all parties, with a price set upon his head, going into a court room on his +way and telling what he had done, thus convincing Missouri that it was not +profitable to try to hold slaves in his neighborhood?—and this, not +because the government menials were lenient, but because they were afraid of +him. +</p> + +<p> +Yet he did not attribute his success, foolishly, to “his star,” or +to any magic. He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers +quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they +<i>lacked a cause</i>—a kind of armor which he and his party never +lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives +in defence of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be +their last act in this world. +</p> + +<p> +But to make haste to <i>his</i> last act, and its effects. +</p> + +<p> +The newspapers seem to ignore, or perhaps are really ignorant of the fact, that +there are at least as many as two or three individuals to a town throughout the +North who think much as the present speaker does about him and his enterprise. +I do not hesitate to say that they are an important and growing party. We +aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read +history and our bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe +in. Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and +five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise, but their very anxiety to +prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still +dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the +fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free +inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They +at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of +that man’s position and probable fate is spoiling many a man’s day +here at the North for other thinking. If any one who has seen him here can +pursue successfully any other train of thought, I do not know what he is made +of. If there is any such who gets his usual allowance of sleep, I will warrant +him to fatten easily under any circumstances which do not touch his body or +purse. I put a piece of paper and a pencil under my pillow, and when I could +not sleep, I wrote in the dark. +</p> + +<p> +On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a +million, is not being increased these days. I have noticed the cold-blooded way +in which newspaper writers and men generally speak of this event, as if an +ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual “pluck,”—as the +Governor of Virginia is reported to have said, using the language of the +cock-pit, “the gamest man he ever saw,”—had been caught, and +were about to be hung. He was not dreaming of his foes when the governor +thought he looked so brave. It turns what sweetness I have to gall, to hear, or +hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When we heard at first that he +was dead, one of my townsmen observed that “he died as the fool +dieth”; which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him +dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that +“he threw his life away,” because he resisted the government. Which +way have they thrown <i>their</i> lives, pray?—Such as would praise a man +for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves or murderers. I hear another +ask, Yankee-like, “What will he gain by it?” as if he expected to +fill his pockets by this enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this +worldly sense. If it does not lead to a “surprise” party, if he +does not get a new pair of boots, or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. +“But he won’t gain anything by it.” Well, no, I don’t +suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year +round; but then he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his +soul,—and <i>such</i> a soul!—when <i>you</i> do not. No doubt you +can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but +that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to. +</p> + +<p> +Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, +when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our +watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a +crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, +that it does not ask our leave to germinate. +</p> + +<p> +The momentary charge at Balaclava, in obedience to a blundering command, +proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been +celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part +successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, +in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than +that, as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you +think that that will go unsung? +</p> + +<p> +“Served him right”—“A dangerous +man”—“He is undoubtedly insane.” So they proceed to +live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable lives, reading their +Plutarch a little, but chiefly pausing at that feat of Putnam, who was let down +into a wolf’s den; and in this wise they nourish themselves for brave and +patriotic deeds some time or other. The Tract Society could afford to print +that story of Putnam. You might open the district schools with the reading of +it, for there is nothing about Slavery or the Church in it; unless it occurs to +the reader that some pastors are <i>wolves</i> in sheep’s clothing. +“The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions” even, +might dare to protest against <i>that</i> wolf. I have heard of boards, and of +American boards, but it chances that I never heard of this particular lumber +till lately. And yet I hear of Northern men, and women, and children, by +families, buying a “life membership” in such societies as these. A +life-membership in the grave! You can get buried cheaper than that. +</p> + +<p> +Our foes are in our midst and all about us. There is hardly a house but is +divided against itself, for our foe is the all but universal woodenness of both +head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; +and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of +all kinds. We are mere figure-heads upon a hulk, with livers in the place of +hearts. The curse is the worship of idols, which at length changes the +worshipper into a stone image himself; and the New Englander is just as much an +idolater as the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a +political graven image between him and his God. +</p> + +<p> +A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists! +Away with your broad and flat churches, and your narrow and tall churches! Take +a step forward, and invent a new style of out-houses. Invent a salt that will +save you, and defend our nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the +liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to bed and sleep quietly +afterward. All his prayers begin with “Now I lay me down to sleep,” +and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go to his +“<i>long</i> rest.” He has consented to perform certain old +established charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of +any new-fangled ones; he doesn’t wish to have any supplementary articles +added to the contract, to fit it to the present time. He shows the whites of +his eyes on the Sabbath, and the blacks all the rest of the week. The evil is +not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation of spirit. Many, no doubt, +are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and by habit, and they cannot +conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly +they pronounce this man insane, for they know that <i>they</i> could never act +as he does, as long as they are themselves. +</p> + +<p> +We dream of foreign countries, of other times and races of men, placing them at +a distance in history or space; but let some significant event like the present +occur in our midst, and we discover, often, this distance and this strangeness +between us and our nearest neighbors. <i>They</i> are our Austrias, and Chinas, +and South Sea Islands. Our crowded society becomes well spaced all at once, +clean and handsome to the eye, a city of magnificent distances. We discover why +it was that we never got beyond compliments and surfaces with them before; we +become aware of as many versts between us and them as there are between a +wandering Tartar and a Chinese town. The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the +thoroughfares of the market-place. Impassable seas suddenly find their level +between us, or dumb steppes stretch themselves out there. It is the difference +of constitution, of intelligence, and faith, and not streams and mountains, +that make the true and impassable boundaries between individuals and between +states. None but the like-minded can come plenipotentiary to our court. +</p> + +<p> +I read all the newspapers I could get within a week after this event, and I do +not remember in them a single expression of sympathy for these men. I have +since seen one noble statement, in a Boston paper, not editorial. Some +voluminous sheets decided not to print the full report of Brown’s words +to the exclusion of other matter. It was as if a publisher should reject the +manuscript of the New Testament, and print Wilson’s last speech. The same +journal which contained this pregnant news, was chiefly filled, in parallel +columns, with the reports of the political conventions that were being held. +But the descent to them was too steep. They should have been spared this +contrast, been printed in an extra at least. To turn from the voices and deeds +of earnest men to the <i>cackling</i> of political conventions! Office seekers +and speech-makers, who do not so much as lay an honest egg, but wear their +breasts bare upon an egg of chalk! Their great game is the game of straws, or +rather that universal aboriginal game of the platter, at which the Indians +cried <i>hub, bub!</i> Exclude the reports of religious and political +conventions, and publish the words of a living man. +</p> + +<p> +But I object not so much to what they have omitted, as to what they have +inserted. Even the <i>Liberator</i> called it “a misguided, wild, and +apparently insane ... effort.” As for the herd of newspapers and +magazines, I do not chance to know an editor in the country who will +deliberately print anything which he knows will ultimately and permanently +reduce the number of his subscribers. They do not believe that it would be +expedient. How then can they print truth? If we do not say pleasant things, +they argue, nobody will attend to us. And so they do like some travelling +auctioneers, who sing an obscene song in order to draw a crowd around them. +Republican editors, obliged to get their sentences ready for the morning +edition, and accustomed to look at everything by the twilight of politics, +express no admiration, nor true sorrow even, but call these men “deluded +fanatics”—“mistaken men”—“insane,” +or “crazed.” It suggests what a <i>sane</i> set of editors we are +blessed with, <i>not</i> “mistaken men”; who know very well on +which side their bread is buttered, at least. +</p> + +<p> +A man does a brave and humane deed, and at once, on all sides, we hear people +and parties declaring, “I didn’t do it, nor countenance <i>him</i> +to do it, in any conceivable way. It can’t be fairly inferred from my +past career.” I, for one, am not interested to hear you define your +position. I don’t know that I ever was, or ever shall be. I think it is +mere egotism, or impertinent at this time. Ye needn’t take so much pains +to wash your skirts of him. No intelligent man will ever be convinced that he +was any creature of yours. He went and came, as he himself informs us, +“under the auspices of John Brown and nobody else.” The Republican +party does not perceive how many his <i>failure</i> will make to vote more +correctly than they would have them. They have counted the votes of +Pennsylvania & Co., but they have not correctly counted Captain +Brown’s vote. He has taken the wind out of their sails, the little wind +they had, and they may as well lie to and repair. +</p> + +<p> +What though he did not belong to your clique! Though you may not approve of his +method or his principles, recognize his magnanimity. Would you not like to +claim kindredship with him in that, though in no other thing he is like, or +likely, to you? Do you think that you would lose your reputation so? What you +lost at the spile, you would gain at the bung. +</p> + +<p> +If they do not mean all this, then they do not speak the truth, and say what +they mean. They are simply at their old tricks still. +</p> + +<p> +“It was always conceded to him,” <i>says one who calls him +crazy</i>, “that he was a conscientious man, very modest in his demeanor, +apparently inoffensive, until the subject of Slavery was introduced, when he +would exhibit a feeling of indignation unparalleled.” +</p> + +<p> +The slave-ship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are +being added in mid ocean; a small crew of slaveholders, countenanced by a large +body of passengers, is smothering four millions under the hatches, and yet the +politician asserts that the only proper way by which deliverance is to be +obtained, is by “the quiet diffusion of the sentiments of +humanity,” without any “outbreak.” As if the sentiments of +humanity were ever found unaccompanied by its deeds, and you could disperse +them, all finished to order, the pure article, as easily as water with a +watering-pot, and so lay the dust. What is that that I hear cast overboard? The +bodies of the dead that have found deliverance. That is the way we are +“diffusing” humanity, and its sentiments with it. +</p> + +<p> +Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of +an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance, that he acted “on the +principle of revenge.” They do not know the man. They must enlarge +themselves to conceive of him. I have no doubt that the time will come when +they will begin to see him as he was. They have got to conceive of a man of +faith and of religious principle, and not a politician or an Indian; of a man +who did not wait till he was personally interfered with, or thwarted in some +harmless business, before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed. +</p> + +<p> +If Walker may be considered the representative of the South, I wish I could say +that Brown was the representative of the North. He was a superior man. He did +not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did not recognize +unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. For once we are lifted out +of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood. +No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the +dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and +all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all. He needed no +babbling lawyer, making false issues, to defend him. He was more than a match +for all the judges that American voters, or office-holders of whatever grade, +can create. He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his +peers did not exist. When a man stands up serenely against the condemnation and +vengeance of mankind, rising above them literally <i>by a whole +body</i>,—even though he were of late the vilest murderer, who has +settled that matter with himself,—the spectacle is a sublime +one,—didn’t ye know it, ye Liberators, ye Tribunes, ye +Republicans?—and we become criminal in comparison. Do yourselves the +honor to recognize him. He needs none of your respect. +</p> + +<p> +As for the Democratic journals, they are not human enough to affect me at all. +I do not feel indignation at anything they may say. +</p> + +<p> +I am aware that I anticipate a little, that he was still, at the last accounts, +alive in the hands of his foes; but that being the case, I have all along found +myself thinking and speaking of him as physically dead. +</p> + +<p> +I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, +whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather +see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard, than +that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am +his contemporary. +</p> + +<p> +What a contrast, when we turn to that political party which is so anxiously +shuffling him and his plot out of its way, and looking around for some +available slaveholder, perhaps, to be its candidate, at least for one who will +execute the Fugitive Slave Law, and all those other unjust laws which he took +up arms to annul! +</p> + +<p> +Insane! A father and six sons, and one son-in-law, and several more men +besides,—as many at least as twelve disciples,—all struck with +insanity at once; while the same tyrant holds with a firmer gripe than ever his +four millions of slaves, and a thousand sane editors, his abettors, are saving +their country and their bacon! Just as insane were his efforts in Kansas. Ask +the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane? Do the +thousands who know him best, who have rejoiced at his deeds in Kansas, and have +afforded him material aid there, think him insane? Such a use of this word is a +mere trope with most who persist in using it, and I have no doubt that many of +the rest have already in silence retracted their words. +</p> + +<p> +Read his admirable answers to Mason and others. How they are dwarfed and +defeated by the contrast! On the one side, half brutish, half timid +questioning; on the other, truth, clear as lightning, crashing into their +obscene temples. They are made to stand with Pilate, and Gessler, and the +Inquisition. How ineffectual their speech and action! and what a void their +silence! They are but helpless tools in this great work. It was no human power +that gathered them about this preacher. +</p> + +<p> +What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few <i>sane</i> representatives to +Congress for, of late years?—to declare with effect what kind of +sentiments? All their speeches put together and boiled down,—and probably +they themselves will confess it,—do not match for manly directness and +force, and for simple truth, the few casual remarks of crazy John Brown, on the +floor of the Harper’s Ferry engine-house,—that man whom you are +about to hang, to send to the other world, though not to represent <i>you</i> +there. No, he was not our representative in any sense. He was too fair a +specimen of a man to represent the like of us. Who, then, <i>were</i> his +constituents? If you read his words understandingly you will find out. In his +case there is no idle eloquence, no made, nor maiden speech, no compliments to +the oppressor. Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his +sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharp’s rifles, while he retained +his faculty of speech,—a Sharp’s rifle of infinitely surer and +longer range. +</p> + +<p> +And the <i>New York Herald</i> reports the conversation <i>verbatim!</i> It +does not know of what undying words it is made the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +I have no respect for the penetration of any man who can read the report of +that conversation, and still call the principal in it insane. It has the ring +of a saner sanity than an ordinary discipline and habits of life, than an +ordinary organization, secure. Take any sentence of it—“Any +questions that I can honorably answer, I will; not otherwise. So far as I am +myself concerned, I have told everything truthfully. I value my word, +sir.” The few who talk about his vindictive spirit, while they really +admire his heroism, have no test by which to detect a noble man, no amalgam to +combine with his pure gold. They mix their own dross with it. +</p> + +<p> +It is a relief to turn from these slanders to the testimony of his more +truthful, but frightened, jailers and hangmen. Governor Wise speaks far more +justly and appreciatingly of him than any Northern editor, or politician, or +public personage, that I chance to have heard from. I know that you can afford +to hear him again on this subject. He says: “They are themselves mistaken +who take him to be a madman.... He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it +is but just to him to say, that he was humane to his prisoners.... And he +inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a +fanatic, vain and garrulous,” (I leave that part to Mr. Wise) “but +firm, truthful, and intelligent. His men, too, who survive, are like him.... +Colonel Washington says that he was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in +defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot +through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle +with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging +them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could. Of the three +white prisoners, Brown, Stephens, and Coppoc, it was hard to say which was most +firm....” +</p> + +<p> +Almost the first Northern men whom the slaveholder has learned to respect! +</p> + +<p> +The testimony of Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same +purport, that “it is vain to underrate either the man or his +conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, +fanatic, or madman.” +</p> + +<p> +“All is quiet at Harper’s Ferry,” say the journals. What is +the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder +prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with +glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus +assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a +government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to +maintain Slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a +merely brute force, or worse, a demoniacal force. It is the head of the +Plug Uglies. It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this +government to be effectually allied with France and Austria in oppressing +mankind. There sits a tyrant holding fettered four millions of slaves; here +comes their heroic liberator. This most hypocritical and diabolical government +looks up from its seat on the gasping four millions, and inquires with an +assumption of innocence: “What do you assault me for? Am I not an honest +man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of you, too, or +else hang you.” +</p> + +<p> +We talk about a <i>representative</i> government; but what a monster of a +government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the +<i>whole</i> heart, are not <i>represented</i>. A semi-human tiger or ox, +stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot +away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, +but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that. +</p> + +<p> +The only government that I recognize,—and it matters not how few are at +the head of it, or how small its army,—is that power that establishes +justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we +think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are +enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that +pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day! +</p> + +<p> +Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help thinking of you +as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought? High +treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is +first committed by, the power that makes and forever recreates man. When you +have caught and hung all these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but +your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain head. You presume to +contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon +<i>point</i> not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to turn +against its maker? Is the form in which the founder thinks he casts it more +essential than the constitution of it and of himself? +</p> + +<p> +The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined +to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated +overseers to prevent their escape. Such are not all the inhabitants of +Massachusetts, but such are they who rule and are obeyed here. It was +Massachusetts, as well as Virginia, that put down this insurrection at +Harper’s Ferry. She sent the marines there, and she will have to pay the +penalty of her sin. +</p> + +<p> +Suppose that there is a society in this State that out of its own purse and +magnanimity saves all the fugitive slaves that run to us, and protects our +colored fellow-citizens, and leaves the other work to the government, +so-called. Is not that government fast losing its occupation, and becoming +contemptible to mankind? If private men are obliged to perform the offices of +government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government +becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services. +Of course, that is but the shadow of a government whose existence necessitates +a Vigilant Committee. What should we think of the oriental Cadi even, behind +whom worked in secret a Vigilant Committee? But such is the character of our +Northern States generally; each has its Vigilant Committee. And, to a certain +extent, these crazy governments recognize and accept this relation. They say, +virtually, “We’ll be glad to work for you on these terms, only +don’t make a noise about it.” And thus the government, its salary +being insured, withdraws into the back shop, taking the Constitution with it, +and bestows most of its labor on repairing that. When I hear it at work +sometimes, as I go by, it reminds me, at best, of those farmers who in winter +contrive to turn a penny by following the coopering business. And what kind of +spirit is their barrel made to hold? They speculate in stocks, and bore holes +in mountains, but they are not competent to lay out even a decent highway. The +only <i>free</i> road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the +Vigilant Committee. <i>They</i> have tunnelled under the whole breadth of the +land. Such a government is losing its power and respectability as surely as +water runs out of a leaky vessel, and is held by one that can contain it. +</p> + +<p> +I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and +the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time +came?—till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no +rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from +ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found +worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and +oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; +apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity, ready to +sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow man. It may be +doubted if there were as many more their equals in these respects in all the +country—I speak of his followers only—for their leader, no doubt, +scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were +ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were the +very best men you could select to be hung. That was the greatest compliment +which this country could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. She has +tried a long time, she has hung a good many, but never found the right one +before. +</p> + +<p> +When I think of him, and his six sons, and his son-in-law, not to enumerate the +others, enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to +work, for months if not years, sleeping and waking upon it, summering and +wintering the thought, without expecting any reward but a good conscience, +while almost all America stood ranked on the other side—I say again that +it affects me as a sublime spectacle. If he had had any journal advocating +“<i>his cause</i>,” any organ, as the phrase is, monotonously and +wearisomely playing the same old tune, and then passing round the hat, it would +have been fatal to his efficiency. If he had acted in any way so as to be let +alone by the government, he might have been suspected. It was the fact that the +tyrant must give place to him, or he to the tyrant, that distinguished him from +all the reformers of the day that I know. +</p> + +<p> +It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by +force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. +They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by +the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. Such will be more shocked +by his life than by his death. I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in +his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave +when I say, that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy +which neither shoots me nor liberates me. At any rate, I do not think it is +quite sane for one to spend his whole life in talking or writing about this +matter, unless he is continuously inspired, and I have not done so. A man may +have other affairs to attend to. I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I +can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me +unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty +violence every day. Look at the policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at +the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are +hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of <i>this</i> provisional army. So +we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the +mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of +Sharp’s rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are +insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with +them, or the like. I think that for once the Sharp’s rifles and the +revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of +one who could use them. +</p> + +<p> +The same indignation that is said to have cleared the temple once will clear it +again. The question is not about the weapon, but the spirit in which you use +it. No man has appeared in America, as yet, who loved his fellow man so well, +and treated him so tenderly. He lived for him. He took up his life and he laid +it down for him. What sort of violence is that which is encouraged, not by +soldiers, but by peaceable citizens, not so much by laymen as by ministers of +the gospel, not so much by the fighting sects as by the Quakers, and not so +much by Quaker men as by Quaker women? +</p> + +<p> +This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death—the +possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in +America before; for in order to die you must first have lived. I don’t +believe in the hearses, and palls, and funerals that they have had. There was +no death in the case, because there had been no life; they merely rotted or +sloughed off, pretty much as they had rotted or sloughed along. No +temple’s veil was rent, only a hole dug somewhere. Let the dead bury +their dead. The best of them fairly ran down like a clock. +Franklin,—Washington,—they were let off without dying; they were +merely missing one day. I hear a good many pretend that they are going to die; +or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I’ll defy them +to do it. They haven’t got life enough in them. They’ll deliquesce +like fungi, and keep a hundred eulogists mopping the spot where they left off. +Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you +are going to die, sir? No! there’s no hope of you. You haven’t got +your lesson yet. You’ve got to stay after school. We make a needless ado +about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take. +<i>Memento mori!</i> We don’t understand that sublime sentence which some +worthy got sculptured on his gravestone once. We’ve interpreted it in a +grovelling and snivelling sense; we’ve wholly forgotten how to die. +</p> + +<p> +But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know +how to begin, you will know when to end. +</p> + +<p> +These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to +live. If this man’s acts and words do not create a revival, it will be +the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news +that America has ever heard. It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the +North, and infused more and more generous blood into her veins and heart, than +any number of years of what is called commercial and political prosperity +could. How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to +live for! +</p> + +<p> +One writer says that Brown’s peculiar monomania made him to be +“dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being.” Sure enough, +a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. +He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity in him. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Unless above himself he can<br/> +Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!” +</p> + +<p> +Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his <i>insanity</i> that he +thought he was appointed to do this work which he did,—that he did not +suspect himself for a moment! They talk as if it were impossible that a man +could be “divinely appointed” in these days to do any work +whatever; as if vows and religion were out of date as connected with any +man’s daily work; as if the agent to abolish Slavery could only be +somebody appointed by the President, or by some political party. They talk as +if a man’s death were a failure, and his continued life, be it of +whatever character, were a success. +</p> + +<p> +When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, +and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily +and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens +and earth are asunder. +</p> + +<p> +The amount of it is, our “<i>leading men</i>” are a harmless kind +of folk, and they know <i>well enough</i> that <i>they</i> were not divinely +appointed, but elected by the votes of their party. +</p> + +<p> +Who is it whose safety requires that Captain Brown be hung? Is it indispensable +to any Northern man? Is there no resource but to cast these men also to the +Minotaur? If you do not wish it, say so distinctly. While these things are +being done, beauty stands veiled and music is a screeching lie. Think of +him,—of his rare qualities!—such a man as it takes ages to make, +and ages to understand; no mock hero, nor the representative of any party. A +man such as the sun may not rise upon again in this benighted land. To whose +making went the costliest material, the finest adamant; sent to be the redeemer +of those in captivity. And the only use to which you can put him is to hang him +at the end of a rope! You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider +what you are about to do to him who offered himself to be the savior of four +millions of men. +</p> + +<p> +Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot +enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly +punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of +his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its +own dissolution. Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a +government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or +declared by any number of men to be good, if they are <i>not</i> good? Is there +any necessity for a man’s being a tool to perform a deed of which his +better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that <i>good</i> +men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the +letter, and not the spirit? What right have <i>you</i> to enter into a compact +with yourself that you <i>will</i> do thus or so, against the light within you? +Is it for <i>you</i> to <i>make up</i> your mind,—to form any resolution +whatever,—and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and +which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode +of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his +own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence +whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. +Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters +of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing. +A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in a free! +What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that? +</p> + +<p> +I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his +character,—his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is +not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; +this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a +chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an +Angel of Light. +</p> + +<p> +I see now that it was necessary that the bravest and humanest man in all the +country should be hung. Perhaps he saw it himself. I <i>almost fear</i> that I +may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a prolonged life, if <i>any</i> +life, can do as much good as his death. +</p> + +<p> +“Misguided”! “Garrulous”! “Insane”! +“Vindictive”! So ye write in your easy-chairs, and thus he wounded +responds from the floor of the Armory, clear as a cloudless sky, true as the +voice of nature is: “No man sent me here; it was my own prompting and +that of my Maker. I acknowledge no master in human form.” +</p> + +<p> +And in what a sweet and noble strain he proceeds, addressing his captors, who +stand over him: “I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong +against God and humanity, and it would be perfectly right for any one to +interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in +bondage.” +</p> + +<p> +And referring to his movement: “It is, in my opinion, the greatest +service a man can render to God.” +</p> + +<p> +“I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them; that is why I am +here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It +is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and +as precious in the sight of God.” +</p> + +<p> +You don’t know your testament when you see it. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and +weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave power, just as much as I do +those of the most wealthy and powerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you people at the +South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question, that must come up +for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared +the better. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now; but +this question is still to be settled,—this negro question, I mean; the +end of that is not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to +Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with +the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the +ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of +Slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain +Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge. +</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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