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A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN .......................................................................................................1

Henry David Thoreau..............................................................................................................................1

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,

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

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.

For a part of his life he was a surveyor, and at one time he was engaged in woolgrowing, 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.

I should say that he was an oldfashioned man in his 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.

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 higherprincipled 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.

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 his humanities, and not any study of grammar. He would have left a

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

"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 smallpox, 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 Godfearing 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.

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.

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

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 pentup fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimneyflue. 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

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 oxcart 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

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

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

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 courtroom 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.

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

lacked a cause 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

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 did 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 tacties. 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

On the whole, my respect for my fellowmen, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased

these days. I have noticed the coldblooded 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 cockpit, "the gamest man be 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, cravenhearted, said disparagingly, that "he

threw his life away," because he resisted the government. Which way have they thrown their lives, pray?

such as would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves or murderers. I hear another ask,

Yankeelike, "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 fourandsixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but then he stands a chance to

save a considerable part of his souland such a soul! when you 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.

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

The momentary charge at Balaklava, 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

"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 wolves in sheep's clothing. "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign

Missions," even, might dare to protest against that 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 "lifemembership" in such societies as these. A lifemembership in the

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

figureheads upon a bulk, 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

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 outhouses.

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 "long rest." He has consented to perform

certain oldestablished charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of any newfangled 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 they could never act as he does, as long as

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. They 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 marketplace.

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 likeminded can come

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 cackling of politicial conventions! Officeseekers and speechmakers, 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 hub, bub! Exclude the reports

But I object not so much to what they have omitted as to what they have inserted. Even the Liberator called it

"a misguided, wild, and apparently insaneeffort." 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 sane set of editors we are

blessed with, not "mistaken men"; who know very well on which side their bread is buttered, at least.

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 him 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 failure 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.

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

If they do not mean all this, then they do not speak the truth, and say what they mean. They are simply at

"It was always conceded to him," says one who calls him crazy, "that he was a conscientious man, very

modest in his demeanor, apparently inoffensive, until the subject of Slavery was introduced, when he would

The slaveship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are being added in midocean; 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 wateringpot, 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,

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

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

officeholders 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 by a whole body 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

As for the Democratic journals, they are not human enough to affect me at all. I do not feel indignation at

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.

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 StateHouse

yard than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.

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!

Insane! A father and six sons, and one soninlaw, 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.

Read his admirable answers to Mason and others. How they are dwarfed and defeated by the contrast! On the

one side, halfbrutish, halftimid 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

What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane 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 enginehouse that man whom you

are about to hang, to send to the other world, though not to represent you 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, were

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

And the New York Herald reports the conversation verbatim! It does not know of what undying words it is

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.

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, Stevens, and Coppoc, it was hard to

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

"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 PlugUglies. 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

We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest

faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented! A semihuman 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.

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

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 fountainhead. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets

and rifled cannon point not. Can all the art of the cannonfounder 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?

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

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 fellowcitizens, 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

free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunnelled

under the whole breadth of the land. Such a government is losing its power and respectability as surely as

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 fellowman. 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

When I think of him, and his six sons, and his soninlaw, 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 "his cause," 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

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 socalled 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 this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our henroosts, 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

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

fellowman 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

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. Memento mori! 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.

But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know

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

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

Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his insanity 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

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

The amount of it is, our "leading men" are a harmless kind of folk, and they know well enough that they were

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 this man 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 saviour of four millions of men.

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 not 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 lawmakers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and

not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against

the light within you? Is it for you to make up 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

lawfactory, standing half in a slave land and half in a free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect

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

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 almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a prolonged life, if any life,

"Misguided!" "Garrulous!" "Insane!" "Vindictive!" So ye write in your easychairs, 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."

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 wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage."

And, referring to his movement: "It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man can render to God."

"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

"I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by

"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."

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