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Chapter 1: the Lord's first call.
The 25th day of May, 1854, was a day of great sorrow, and of the wildest exultation at Washington. An infamous statute had been still more infamously repealed. Thirty-four years before this the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act,--the representatives of the nation, in Congress assembled, for the first time in our history, and in defiance of the moral sentiment of Christendom, as well as in opposition to the noblest instincts of human nature, and, resting on them, the spirit of the Federal Constitution, solemnly — as they phrased it — and forever prohibited the existence of slavery “in all that territory which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes;” but, by the same law, as a “compromise” with the South, established and legalized her organized and distinguishing crime in that. portion of the Union now known as Missouri. Triumphant crime is never satisfied with temporary advantages. Missouri now secured, the South coveted Kansas, the most fertile portion of the remaining territory. By the pliancy of Northern politicians, the compromise was repealed, and [76] Kansas and Nebraska thrown open for settlement. The vital and moral question of the extension of slavery, it was pretended, in justice to “the people,” should be settled solely, and could only constitutionally be determined by the first inhabitants themselves. This atrocious doctrine, so revolting to every Christian or manly heart, was euphoniously designated, in the act of repeal and organization, the right to “form their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States.” Thus the nation solemnly repudiated the validity of the will of God, disregarded the principles of the Revolutionary Fathers, and ignored the venerated maxim of the common law, that all immoral statutes are void. The enslaving of God's poor children; the traffic in human souls and bodies; the forced, frequent, and final separation of families; the violation of all marital obligations — all the crimes of which slavery is the source, and by which it is supported: the expansion and perpetuation of the sum of all villanies, were questions, this instrument declared, which should be settled by the squatters alone, “subject only to the constitution of the United States.” For, that the authors of the bill intended nothing else or more, was admitted in all their subsequent discussions; by the President in his message; and by the South and the Government, in all their actions. Non-intervention was the order of the day. Great and undisguised was the rejoicing at the South; for they thought that Kansas was now secured to them forever. But, in the North, the indignation of the people, [77] thus treacherously defrauded of the territorial bribe that had been tendered long ago for the surrender of Missouri, was organized into companies for the encouragement of emigration, and it was every where determined, that, if the pioneers or first denizens of Kansas should pronounce the doom of slavery there, the Free States should have a voice and a vote in the solemn and momentous decision. Emigration flowed rapidly into Kansas, both from the North and South. But, for a long time, all the advantages were on the side of slavery. Missouri,her borders on Kansas peopled with semi-barbarous ruffians,--was the jealous guardian of the interests, and a fit representative of the Southern States. Every obstacle was soon thrown in the way of the Northern emigrants. They were driven back; they were tarred and feathered; their claims were seized; their cabins were burned down; they were often ordered, by committees of Southern emigrants, or the Missouri rabble, to leave the Territory at once, under penalty of death. A single paragraph from a single speech by one of the acknowledged champions of the South, will better illustrate their early career in Kansas, than even an extended account of their outrages. It is from a speech delivered at St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1854, by General Stringfellow,1 a prominent citizen of that vandal state:I tell you to mark every scoundrel among you who is the least tainted with abolitionism, or free soilism, and exterminate him. Neither give nor take quarter from the d-d rascals. To those who have [78] qualms of conscience as to violating laws, state or national, say, the time has come when such impositions must be disregarded, as your rights and property are in danger. I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in Kansas, in defiance of Reeder and his myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie knife and revolver. Neither take nor give quarter, as the cause demands it. It is enough that the slave-holding interest wills it, from which there is no appeal.This advice, reiterated by every paper and politician in the Platte Purchase,--which was preeminently the border ruffian region,--was translated into action on the 29th of November, 1854, at the first election ever held in Kansas for a delegate to Congress. Seventeen hundred men from Missouri marched over the border and voted in the Territory for the pro-slavery candidate. The news of this crime against republican institutions excited the renewed indignation of the North. Liberty-loving hearts were every where moved by it. Instead of deterring, it incited emigration. Among the brave pulses thus stirred were those of the family of old John Brown.
In 1854, the four eldest sons of John Brown,2 named John, Jr., Jason, Owen, and Frederick, all children by a first wife, then living in Ohio, determined to remove to Kansas. John, Jr., sold his place, a very desirable little property near Akron, in Summit County. The other two sons held no landed property, but both were possessed of some valuable stock, (as were also the two first named,) derived from that of their father, which had been often noticed by liberal premiums, both in the State of New York and also of Ohio. [79] Jason Brown had a very valuable collection of grape vines, and also of choice fruit trees, which he took up and shipped in boxes at a heavy cost. The two first named, John and Jason, had both families. Owen had none. Frederick was engaged to be married, and was to return with his wife. In consequence of an extreme dearth in 1854, the crops in Northern Ohio were almost an entire failure, and it was decided by the four brothers that the two youngest should take the teams and entire stock, cattle and horses, and move them to South-Western Illinois to winter, and to have them on early in the spring of 1855. This was done at very considerable expense, and with some loss of stock to John, Jr., some of his best stock having been stolen on the way. The wintering of the animals was attended with great expense, and with no little suffering to the two youngest brothers, one of whom, Owen, being to some extent a cripple from childhood, by an injury of the right arm, and Frederick, though a very stout man, was subject to periodical sickness for many years. attended with insanity. It has been publicly stated that he was idiotic; nothing could be more false. He had subjected himself to a most dreadful surgical operation but a short time before starting for Kansas, which had well nigh cost him his life; and was but just through with his confinement when he started on his journey, pale and weak. They were obliged to husk corn all winter, out of doors, in order to obtain fodder for their animals. Solomon Brown, a very strong minor son of the [80] family, eighteen years of age, was sent forward early in 1855, to assist the two last named, and all three arrived in Kansas early in the spring. During this slow journey with their stock across the entire width of Missouri, they heard much from her people of the stores of wrath and vengeance which were then and there gathering for the free state men and abolitionists gone or going to Kansas, and were themselves often admonished, in no very mild language, to stop ere it should be “too late.”They settled near the Pottawattomie, a little stream in Southern Kansas, in Lykins County, about eight miles distant from the site of Ossawattomie, which their father subsequently converted into classic ground. Of the hardships they endured, and the outrages inflicted on them by the champions of slavery, their father, in the paper above quoted, gave a detailed account; but as to have published it would have damaged the democratic party in the elections then pending, we are told that “a portion of the manuscript was lost,” and that “the history was of considerable length, but did not further possess special interest.” “The brothers,” writes a friend of the family, “were all free state men in opinion; but, removing thither with the intention of settling there, went without arms. They were harassed, plundered, threatened, and insulted by gangs of marauding border ruffians, with whom the prime object was plunder; and noisy pro-slavery partizanship was equivalent to a free charter to do so with impunity. The sons wrote to their father, requesting him to procure such arms as [81] might enable them, in some degree, to protect themselves, and personally to bring them to Kansas.” It was not in the nature of John Brown to resist this petition. He undoubtedly regarded it as a call from the Almighty to gird up his loins and go forth to do battle “as the warrior of the Lord,” as “the warrior of the Lord against the mighty,” in behalf of His despised poor and His downtrodden people. The moment long waited for had at length arrived; the sign he had patiently expected had been given; and the brave old soldier of the God of Battles prepared at once to obey the summons. A meeting of abolitionists was held in a county adjoining Essex, New York, in the summer of 1855. “When in session, John Brown appeared in that convention, and made a very fiery speech, during which he said he had four sons in Kansas, and had three others who were desirous of going there, to aid in fighting the battles of freedom. He could not consent to go unless he could go armed, and he would like to arm all his sons; but his poverty prevented him from doing so. Funds were contributed on the spot; principally by Gerritt Smith.” He had only two objects in going to Kansas: first, to begin the work for which, as he believed, he had been set apart, by so acting as to acquire the confidence of the friends of freedom, who might thereby subsequently aid him; and, secondly, because, to use his own language, “with the exposure, privations, hardships, and wants of pioneer life, he was familiar, and thought he could benefit his children, and the new [82] beginners from the older parts of the country, and help them to shift and contrive in their new home.” John Brown did not go to Kansas to settle there. Already, elsewhere, I have made this statement; and have seen it doubted by men who are friendly to him -not from knowledge of his motives, but the dictates of policy — because democratic journals and pro-slavery politicians have sought to create a prejudice against him for having voluntarily gone to Kansas, and solely to fight the battles of freedom: as if it had been a crime or a disgrace, instead of an illustrious, patriotic and Christian act for a Northern man to defend Northern rights; for an anti-slavery champion to oppose by the sword the armed propagandists of slavery; for a believer in the Bible to emulate the examples of Moses, Joshua, and Gideon, and obey the solemn utterances of the Most High God. Believing God to be a Being infallible and unchangeable; believing that He once had ordered His enemies to be smitten hip and thigh; believing that the Ever Just had commanded liberty to be proclaimed “throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof;” John Brown did not dare to remain tending sheep at North Elba when the . American Goliath and his hosts were in the field, defying the little armies of the living Lord, and sowing desolation and great sorrow on the soil set apart for his chosen people. Either Freedom has no rights, and the Bible is a lie, or John Brown, in thus acting, was a patriot and a consistent Christian.
