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The State of Arkansas passed a law driving the free colored people out of the State, and they were driven out three years ago. The Democratic press howled upon the heels of the free blacks until they had all been expatriated; but, after they had been driven out, “The Little Rock Gazette”—a Democratic paper—made a candid acknowledgment with regard to the character of the free colored people. It said, “Most of the exiled free negroes are industrious and respectable. One of them, Henry King, we have known from our boyhood, and take the greatest pleasure in testifying to his good character. The community in which he casts his lot will be blessed with that noblest work of God, an honest man.”
Yet these free colored people were driven out of the State, and those who were unable to go, as many of the women and children were, were reduced to slavery.
“The New Orleans True Delta” opposed the passage of a similar law by the State of Louisiana. Among other things, it said, “There are a large free colored population here, correct in their general deportment, honorable in their intercourse with society, and free from reproach so far as the laws are concerned; not surpassed in the inoffensiveness of their lives by any equal number of-persons in any place, North or South.”
And yet these free colored persons were not permitted by law to school their children, or to read books that treated against the institution of slavery. The Rev. Samuel Green, a colored Methodist preacher, was convicted and sent to the Maryland penitentiary, in 1858, for the offence of being found reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
The growth of the “Free-Soil” party, which had taken the place of the “Liberty” party; and then the rapid increase of the “Republican” party; the struggle in Kansas; the “Oberlin Rescue Trials;” and, lastly, the “John Brown Raid,” carried the discussion of slavery to its highest point.
All efforts, in Congress, in the proslavery political conventions, and in the churches, only added fuel to the flame that was fast making inroads upon the vitals of the monster.
CHAPTER VI.—THE JOHN BROWN RAID.
John Brown.—His Religious Zeal.—His Hatred to Slavery.—Organization of his Army.—Attack on Harper’s Ferry.—His Execution.—John Brown’s Companions, Green and Copeland.—The Executions.
The year 1859 will long be memorable for the bold attempt of John Brown and his companions to burst the bolted door of the Southern house of bondage, and lead out the captives by a more effectual way than they had yet known: an attempt in which, it is true, the little band of heroes dashed themselves to bloody death, but, at the same time, shook the prison-walls from summit to foundation, and shot wild alarm into every tyrant-heart in all the slave-land. What were the plans and purposes of the noble old man is not precisely known, and perhaps will never be; but, whatever they were, there is reason to believe they had been long maturing—brooded over silently and secretly, with much earnest thought, and under a solemn sense of religious duty. As early as the fall of 1857, he began to organize his band, chiefly from among the companions of his warfare against the “Border Ruffians” in Kansas. Nine or ten of these spent the winter of 1857–8 in Iowa, where a Col. Forbes was to have given them military instruction; but he, having-fallen out with Brown, did not join them, and Aaron D. Stevens, one of the company, took his place.
About the middle of April, 1858, they left Iowa, and went to Chatham, Canada, where, on the 8th of May, was held a convention, called by a written circular, which was sent to such persons only as could be trusted. The convention was composed mostly of colored men, a few of whom were from the States, but the greater part residents in Canada, with no white men but the organized band already mentioned. A “Provisional Constitution,” which Brown had previously prepared, was adopted; and the members of the convention took an oath to support it. Its manifest purpose was to insure a perfect organization of all who should join the expedition, whether free men or insurgent slaves, and to hold them under such strict control as to restrain them from every act of wanton or vindictive violence, all waste or needless destruction of life or property, all indignity or unnecessary severity to prisoners, and all immoral practices; in short, to keep the meditated movement free from every possibly avoidable evil ordinarily incident to the armed uprising of a long-oppressed and degraded people.
And let no one who glories in the revolutionary struggles of our fathers for their freedom deny the right of the American bondsman to imitate their high example. And those who rejoice in the deeds of a Wallace or a Tell, a Washington or a Warren; who cherish with unbounded gratitude the name of Lafayette for volunteering his aid in behalf of an oppressed people in a desperate crisis, and at the darkest hour of their fate—cannot refuse equal merit to this strong, free, heroic man, who freely consecrated all his powers, and the labors of his whole life, to the help of the most needy, friendless, and unfortunate of mankind.
The picture of the Good Samaritan will live to all future ages, as the model of human excellence, for helping one whom he chanced to find in need.
John Brown did more: he went to seek those who were lost that he might save them.
On Sunday night, Oct. 16, John Brown, with twenty followers (five of them colored), entered the town of Harper’s Ferry, in the State of Virginia; captured the place, making the United-States Armory his headquarters; sent his men in various directions in search of slaves with which to increase his force.
The whole thing, though premature in its commencement, struck a blow that rang on the fetters of the enslaved in every Southern State, and caused the oppressor to tremble for his own safety, as well as for that of the accursed institution.
John Brown’s trial, heroism, and execution, an excellent history of which has been given to the public by Mr. James Redpath, saves me from making any lengthened statement here. His life and acts are matters of history, which will live with the language in which it is written. But little can be said of his companions in the raid on slavery. They were nearly all young men, unknown to fame, enthusiastic admirers of the old Puritan, entering heartily into all of his plans, obeying his orders, and dying bravely, with no reproach against their leader.
Of the five colored men, two only were captured alive—Shields Green and John A. Copeland. The former was a native of South Carolina, having been born in the city of Charleston in the year 1832. Escaping to the North in 1857, he resided in Rochester, N.Y., until attracted by the unadorned eloquence and native magnetism of the hero of Harper’s Ferry. The latter was from North Carolina, and was a mulatto of superior abilities, and a genuine lover of liberty and justice. The following letter, written a short time before his execution, needs no explanation:—
“Charlestown, Va., Dec. 10, 1859.
“My dear Brother—I now take my pen to write you a few lines to let you know how I am, and in answer to your kind letter of the 5th inst. Dear brother, I СКАЧАТЬ