LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius 52 1 ~ Life of John Brown Michael Gold ~ LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 521 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius Life of John Brown Michael Gold HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS FOREWORD. John Brown’s life is a grand, simple epic that should inspire one to heroism. No one asks for dates and minute details on hearing the life of Jesus or Socrates. There are men who have proved their superiority to the pettiness of life, and who seem almost divine. John Brown is ‘one of them. I think he was almost our greatest American. I know that he was the greatest man as eam people of America have yet pro- uc He did not become a President, a financier, a - great scientist or artist; he was a plain and rather obscure farmer until his death. That is his greatness. He had no great offices, no recognition or applause of multitudes to spur him on, to-feed his vanity and self-righteous- ness. He did his duty in silence; he was an outlaw. Only after he had been hung like a common murderer, and only after the Civil War had come to fulfill his prophecies, was he -recognized as a great figure. _ But in his life he was a common man to the end, a hard-working, honest, Puritan farmer with a large family, a man worried with the de- tails of poverty, and obscure as ourselves. Now we are taught as school-children that only those who become Presidents and captains of finance - are the successful ones in our democracy. John Brown proved that there is another form of success, within the reach of everyone, and that is to devote one’s life to a great and pure cause. John Brown was hung as an outlaw; but he Was @ success, as Jesus and Socrates were suc- 4 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN ~ os cesses. Some day school-children will be ta igh that his had been the only sort of success wo striving for in his time. The rest oe the personal success s the beetle itself a huger ball of dung than its -b tles, and exults over it. ce John Brown is a legend; but I ue ek in the simple, obscure heroes who fig freedom today in (ae That is wi telling his story. It is the of t of men living in America now, it. John Brown is still in yes, and he has been h hundred times since rr: soul is marching on; it is the and justice, which canes die, or b LIFE OF JOHN BROWN WHEN SLAVERY WAS RESPECTABLE To understand any of the outstanding men of -history one must also understand something of their background. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius persecuted and burned the primitive Christians; yet he #s accounted one of the most religious and humane of historical figures, and his Meditations are commonly considered a book of the gentlest and wisest counsel toward the good life. ; You cannot understand this paradox unless you know the history of the Roman state. And you cannot understand John Brown unless you understand the history of his times. John Brown, until the age of fifty, had lived the peaceful, laborious life of a Yankee farmer with a large family. He hated war, and was almost a Quaker; had never handled fire-arms, and was a man of deep and silent affections. He was deeply religious, read the Bible daily; Christianity imbued all the acts of his daily existence. This man, nearing his sixtieth year, assem- bled a group of young men with rifles and took the field to wage guerrilla war on slavery. He became a warrior, an outlaw. What drove him to this desperate stand? I think the answer is: Respectability. There is nothing more maddening to a man of deep moral feeling than to find that slavery has become respectable, while freedom is considered the mad dream of a fanatic. 6 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN The slavery of black men had become the most respectable institution in America in John Brown’s time. It had had a dark and bloody — become history of a hundred years in which to firmly rooted into American life. There had been slavery in Europe for cen- turies before the discovery of America it was white slavery. Each feudal baron owned hordes of serfs—white farmers—who were as much a part of his land-holdings as his horses and ploughs. . With the invention of printing, gunpowder and machine production the system of feudal- — ism declined. The French Revolution io deal it-a death blow. The last country where this ancient slavery of white men was not dead was in Russia; but African slavery, the slavery of Negroes, who were heathens, and th could morally be bought and sold by Christ had been reintroduced on the northern coast the Mediterranean by Moorish traders. In the year 990 these Moors from the Bar Coast first reached the cities of Nigrita, and estab- lished an uninterrupted exchange of Saracen and European luxuries for black slaves. verted. The unhappy Negroes were not con- sidered convertible; their slavery was sancti- fied by the church. And for the next few cen- turies the African slave-trade was the most lucrative traffic pursued by mankind. Black slaves were to be found in the whole vast area of Spanish and Portuguese America, also in Dutch and French Guinea and the West Indies. It was black men who cleared the jungles, tilled the fields, built the cities and roads and laid ~ own, in their sweat and blood, the founda- tions of civilization in the New World. Great i ] | : LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 7 jealous and agers monopolies were formed in this traffic of slaves; and its profits were greedily shared by philosophers, statesmen and kings. . In 1776, the American colonies were inhabited by two and a half million white persons, who owned half a million slaves. Many of the most rational and humane leaders of the Revolution saw the inconsistency of slave-holders making a revolution in the name of freedom. There Was some early agitation against slavery, but the humanitarians were in a minority. Even then slavery had become respectable and profit- able. It would have been easy and cheap to have freed the slaves then. It would have been the most practicable thing the young nation could have done. Not a life would have been lost; and the development of the country might have been even more rapid, But it was not done; such acts need more far-sightedness than the average Man possesses, Slavery grew by leaps and bounds, as the country was growing. The slave trader, shrewd, intelligent and rich, kidnapped young men and women in Africa and did a uge business. His markets became the feature of every Southern town. The planters lolled at their ease, and devised ways and means of forcing their slaves to breed more rapidly. The slaves were treated as impersonally as animals. Mothers were sold away from their children, and husbands from their wives. Gen- erations of black men died in bondage, and left their children only the sad inheritance of slav- ery. The South developed an aristocrat class of indolent white men and women who looked down on all work as ignominious, and who used their minds, not in the arts or sciences, but to find new moral justifications for slavery. y LIFE OF JOHN BROWN Slavery was respectable. “It is an act of phi- lanthropy to keep the Negro here, as we keep our children in subjection for their own good, said a Southern statesman. Slavery was moral. Even most of the respectability of the North enlisted in its defense. In 1826, Edward Everett, the great Massachusetts statesman, said in Con- gress that slavery was sanctioned by religion and by the United States Constitution. The churches of almost every denomination were solidly behind slavery. The ie Court ruled that it was constitutional. pro- slavery President occupied the White and Senator Sumner, a lonely abolitionist, was beaten. down with a loaded cane on the senate floor because he dared say a brave word against the nation’s crime. In 1838 William Lloyd Garrison founded the Liberator, first of the abolitionist journals. He said that “the constitution is a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,” and he fought slavery with all his power. “Our coun- try is the world, our countrymen all mankind,” was the slogan of his journal. nm was beaten by a mob in a northern city for his courage; and other abolitionists were tarred and feathered, lynched, and attacked by mobs of respectable northern merchants and church- goers, much as pacifists were beaten by mobs during the late war. Slavery was respectable. Negro field hands sold for $1,000 each, and innocent black babies were worth $100 each to the white master as they suckled at a Negro mother’s breast. To attack slavery was to attack the con- stitution, the church, the government, and the institution of private property. To attack re- spectability has always been the crime of the saviours, and respectability is the cross on which they are forever hung. _ LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 9 HOW JOHN BROWN BECAME AN ABOLI- TIONIST In the pagan ages and in the more distant days of savagery, men were individuals. They had no social imagination. They could stand _ by and see another man writhe in tortures, and laugh at him. Civilization has been develop- ing social imagination; it has been breeding more and more the type of human being who feels the suffering and injustice of another as his own. John Brown was perhaps born with this strain in him. In 1857, when he had alrea plunged into his life-work, and was in the thic 4 of bloody fights in Kansas, he sat down to write a most charming and tender letter to a little boy who was the son of one of his friends in the east. Those who think of fighters like John Brown as possessed by only a lust for battle, ought to read this letter. It reveals how soft was his heart under the grim mask of the Kansas warrior. The letter is autobiographical. It tells how John Brown first became acquainted with the horrors of slavery, and what effect it had on his imagination. This letter is so touching, and so remarkable for the picture it gives of John Brown’s early years, also for the picture of the man’s mature character as revealed by his own words, that I am tempted to give it in full. I shall give only parts of it, however: THE LETTER TO MASTER HENRY L. STEARNS “My dear Young Friend:—I had not forgotten my promise to write you; but my constant care and anxiety have obliged me to put it off a 10 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN long time. I do not flatter myself I can wri anything that will very much interest you; have concluded to send you a short story o certain boy of my acquaintance; and for ele and shortness of name, I ohn “This story will be mainly a narration follies and errors, which I hope Pott fen eid ava but there is one thjng connec Me will be calculated to encourage tS person to persevering effort, and that degree of success in accomplishing his ob. which to a great extent marked the course this boy throughout my entire acquain with him; notwithstanding his moderate ca ity, ¢nd still more moderate acquirements. “John was born May 9, 1800, at To: Connecticut; of poor and hard-working a descendant on the side of his father of of the co pe of the Mayflower v= lan at Plymouth, 1620. His mother was descen from a man who came at an cacy ie verte’ New England from Amsterdam, Both his father’s and his mother’s ioe served in the war of the revolution; his fa’ father died in a barn at New York while in the service, in 1776. “I cannot tell you of anything in the four years of John’s life worth rm ym Sav that at an early age — Me tempted large brass pins belon ing toa rae whi. li in the gage and stole them. detected by his mother; and after havivig day to think of the wrong, received from h a thorough whipping. “When he was five years old his father m to Ohio, then a wilderness filled with beasts and Indians. During the long jo which was periormed in part or mostly ore ox-team, he was called on by turns to LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 11, a boy five years older, and learned to think he could accomplish smart things in driving the cows and riding the horses. Sometimes he met with rattlesnakes which were very large, and which some of the company generally man- aged to kill. “After getting to Ohio he was for some time rather afraid of the Indians, and of their rifles; but this soon wore off, and he used to hang about them quite as much as was consistent with good manners, and learned a trifle of their talk. His father at this time learned to dress deer skin, and John, who was perhaps rather observing, ever after remembered the entire process of deer skin dressing, so that he could at any time dress his own leather such as squir- rel, raccoon, cat, wolf or dog skins; and also he learned to make whip lashes, which brought him in some change at various times, and was useful in many ways. “At six years old John began to be quite a rambler in the new wild country, finding birds and squirrels, and sometimes a wild turkey’s nest. Once a poor Indian boy gave him a yel- low marble, the first he had ever seen. This he thought a good deal of, and kept it a good while; but at last he lost it one day. It took years to heal the wound, and I think he cried at times about it. About five months after this he caught a young squirrel, tearing off its tail in doing it; and getting severely bitten at the same time himself. He however held on to the little bob-tailed squirrel and finally got him perfectly tamed, so that he almost idolized his pet. This, too, he lost, by its wandering away; and for a year or two John was in mourning; and looking at all the squirrels he could see to try and discover Bobtail, if pos- sible. He had also at one time become the owner of a little ewe lamb which did finely until it was about two-thirds grown, when it 12 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN sickened and died. This brought another . tracted mourning season; not that he felt Rae pepe paws loss so heavily, for that was never is disposition; but so strong and earnest were his attachments. It was a school of of adversity for John; you may laugh at all this, but they were sore trials to him. “John was never quarrelsome; but was comsivoly fond of the roughest and hardest kin of play; and could never get enough of it. Hi would always choose to stay at home and work hard, rather than go to school. To et sent alone through the wilderness to v erable distances was particularly his. delight; and in this he was often indul: the time he was twelve years old be was eo off more than a hundred miles with com of cattle; and he would have thought his char. acter much injured had he been obliged to be helped in such a job. This was a boyish feel- ing, but characteristic, nevertheless. “When the war broke out with bm oe in 1812 his father soon commenced furn g the troops with beef cattle, the collection and driy- ing of which afforded John some opportuni for the chase, on foot, of wild meecte 4 re 1a cattle through the woods. During had some chance to form his. own sien yu judg. ment of men and measures; and — get what he saw was to so far dis military affairs that he veut ne ee tools a , drill, but got off by paying fines; and along like a Quaker until his age had ¢ cleared him of military duty. “During the war with England a circum- stance Gremsin that in the end meee him a oe determined Abolitionist and led him to swear eternal war with slavery. John was stoppi for a short time with a very gen lord, since made a United States Marshal. This LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 13 man owned a slave boy near John’s age, a boy very active, intelligent and full of good feeling to whom ,John was under considerable obliga- tion for numerous little acts of kindness. “The Master made a great pet of John; brought him to table with his finest company and friends and called their attention to every little smart thing he said or did, and to the fact of his being more than a hundred miles from home with a company of cattle alone; while the Negro boy (who was fully if not more than his equal) was badly clothed, poorly fed and lodged in cold weather, and beaten before John’s eyes with iron shovels or any other thing that came first to hand, “This brought John to reflect on the wretch- ed, hopeless condition of fatherless and mother- less slave children; for such children have nei- ae pooere or mothers to protect and provide or them. “He sometimes would raise the question in his mind: Is God, then, their father?” — » HOW JOHN BROWN EDUCATED HIMSELF There are other matters treated in this long and charming letter, written by an outlaw 57 pears old, to a boy of twelve. One detail that § important is the analysis of his own char- acter. John Brown says his father early made him a sort of foreman in his tanning estab- lishment, and that though he got on in the most friendly way with everyone, “the habit so early formed of being obeyed rendered him in after life too much disposed to speak in an ‘mperious or dictating way.” John Brown was ever hum- ble, and severely chastised his own faults, but 14 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN . this habit of ane a leader served him in pee stead, and made him the born captain of for orn hopes he later became, Another detail that interests us is his account of his early reading. Working-class Americans, and they are the majority of the nation, do not go to the high schools and universities. Neither did John Brown. But they can history, as he did at ten years, and they study and make themselves proficient in some field, as he made a Surveyor of himself by home study. He also read passionately, he says, the lives of great, good and wise men; their say and .writings; the school of biography seems to have nurtured so many John Brown never went to school after k childhood; but he became an expert surveyo he learned the fine points of cattle breeding and ocean he was a student of ape he knew the Bible almost by heart, he studied mili- tary tactics later in life, he was familiar with the lives and times of most of the great leaders of mankind, and best of all, he knew how to. — — to great deeds, and lead théentin the e. ; Great men do not need to own a colleges sect they teach themselves, they are taug y Life. y How meaningless college degrees would sound — if attached after the names of Brutus, Peri Socrates,. Caius Gracchus, Buddha, Jesus, Wail Pd Jefferson, Danton, William Lloyd Gar- rison! As for instance: Jesus Christ, D.D.; Robert Burns, M.A.; Victor Hugo, B.S.; John Brown, Ph.D.! How superfluous the titles of universities, when Life has crowned the student with real and greener laurels! Yes, there a many “pines not taught in the colleges! - 7 7 E d - an ‘3 - oat ff ue LIFE OF JOHN BROWN _ 15 ‘THE MOULDING OF JOHN BROWN ' And so by his own pen, we have had illumi- nated for us the life of John Brown up to his twentieth year. We see him, a big, strong boy, fond of hard work, eapeple in all he put his hand to, a young man bred in the hard college of life in an early pioneer settlement. He was fond of reading good books, and improving his mind; he was rather shy, and yet filled with an extraordinary self-confidenve, which made him a born leader, one who could show the ‘way to men older than himself, and command them, and himself, in the straight line of duty. The subsequent life of John Brown cannot be understood unless one knows all the environ- mental forces and the heredity that went to mould him. John Brown, a Puritan in the austerity of his manner of living, the narrow yet burning reality of his vision, and the hard- _ ships he later underwent, came of a family of American pioneers. To John Brown life from the outset meant incessant strife, first against unconquered nature, then in the struggle for a living, and finally in that effort to be a Sam- son to the oben Philistines in which his existence culminated. Z At twenty John Brown married Dianthe Lusk, a plain but quiet and amiable girl, as deeply religious as her young husband, and as ready as_he to assume all the serious burdens of life. He was working in his father’s tanning estab- lishment at this time, at Hudson, Ohio. But in May, 1825, John Brown moyed his family to Richmond, near Meadville, Pennsylvania, the first of his many moves for he was imbued with a deep restlessness, the hunger of the pioneer for virgin lands and new enterprises. __Here, with his characteristic energy, he cleared twenty-five acres of timber land, built 16 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN a fine tannery, sunk vats, and in a few mor had leather tanning in all of them. Like was “as enterprising and honest as John Bro and as useful to the county.” In Richmond the family dwelt for ten John Brown raised corn, did his ; brought the first blooded stock into the nt} and became the first postmaster. Here, also, Richmond, the first great grief came into Johr Brown’s life, to school him in that stoicism th later made him the hero of a great cause. four year old son died in 1831, and the nex year his wife, Dianthe, died after ha and worked beside him like a good, ¢ woman for twelve years, giving birth to children in that time, five of whom grew vigorous manhood and womanhood. Nearly a year later John Brown was for the second time, to Mary Anne Day, ter of a blacksmith. She was then a hk silent girl of sixteen, who had come to Brown’s home with an older sister to care fe his children after his wife’s death. He quickl grew fond of the young pioneer girl; one day hi gave her a letter offering pee so overcome that she dared not read ft. ; morning she found courage to do so, and whel she went down to the spring for water for th house, he followed her and she gave answer there. Mary Brown was the best wife a John B LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 17 could nave found. She had great physical rug- gedness, and she bore for her husband thirteen children, seven of whom died in childhood, and two of whom were killed in early manhood at Harper’s Ferry. She did more than her full share of the arduous labor of a large pioneer household, and she endured hardships like a Spartan mother. She was strong; and she had a noble and unflinching character. It was only a heroic woman such as this who could have been the wife of a hero; who could have given husband and sons cheerfully to the cause of abolition, and been so silent and brave even after their death. John Brown worked hard; he had no vices, he was honest and painstaking, but somehow success in business always eluded him. This was another of the griefs of his life. He blamed himself for his failures, but it was really not his fault. It requires a real worship of money to make one a business success, and John Brown never took money as seriously as it demands of its lovers. After ten years in Pennsylvania, of much hard work with little results, he moved to Franklin Mills, in Ohio, where he entered the tanning business with Zenas Kent, a well- to-do business man of that town. Here he aiso became involved in a land development scheme that was ruined by a large corporation’s maneu- vers. He was so deeply involved in this and other ventures that in the bad times of 1837 he failed. In 1842 he was again compelled to go through bankruptcy proceedings. In after years John Brown explained these failures to his oldest son as the result of the false doctrine of doing business on credit. “Instead of being thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of pay as you go,” he wrote, “I started out in life with the idea that nothing could be done without capital, and that a poor man must use his credit and borrow; and this pernicious 18 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN doctrine has been the rock on which I, as well as many others, have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been to keep me like a toad under a harrow most of my business life. — Running into debt includes so much evil that I hope all my children will shun it as they would a pestilence.” John Brown never gave up in despair any- thing he had attempted; his business failures bruised him sorely, but he arose each time like a rugged wrestler and began a new endeavor. In 1839, at one of his darkest periods, he a sheep growing and wool marketing venture in which he engaged for many years, going into partnership with Simon Perkins, a w merchant of Akron, Ohio. This partnership was the longest and final one of Brown’s business career. So that is how one must think of Brown, too; not only as the consecrated, almost inhuman battler and martyr, but also as the sane, plod- ding, patient farmer, tanner, surveyor, estate-speculator, and practical shepherd. He was a tall, spare, silent man, terribly pious, terribly honest, a good neighbor and community leader, and the father of a large family of sons and daughters—a patriarch out of the Bible, beg is flocks and gathering about him a tribe of young and stalwart sons. He was a typical pioneer American of those rough days in the settling of the middle west. He had no time for frivolity, though there was a im humor in the man; he brought his children up strictly, yet with a justice that made them all love, revere and respect him until the end; and he had his share of those bee sorrows that crush so many men; his irst beloved wife had died, with an infant son; he had failed in business; and he had lost by death no less than nine children, three of whom perished in one month in those hard o LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 19 surroundings, and one of whom, a little daugh- ter, was accidently scalded to death by an elder sister. These deaths hurt John Brown cruelly, for though stern and stoic, he was a fiercely tender father; all his affections were fierce, though inexpressible and deep, as a lion’s. “I seem to be struck almost dumb by the dreadful news,” he wrote his family, when he heard of this accident. “One more dear little feeble child I am to meet no more till the dead, small and great, shall stand before God. I trust that none of you will feel disposed to cast an unreasonable blame on my dear Ruth on account of the dreadful trial we are called to suffer. This is a bitter cup indeed; but blessed be God; a brighter day shall dawn; ne let us not sorrow as they who have no ope.” The Browns had made at least ten moves in the years from 1830 to 1845, and John Brown had engaged in no less than seven different occupations. But always, under the business man and farmer, there had been the solemn _philosopher brooding on God and the mystery and terror of life; and always, under the sober father and citizen, there had been planning and brooding and suffering keenly the tender humanitarian, the Christ-like martyr, the re- lentless fighter who would finally pay- with his life to strike a blow at Slavery, “that sum of all villainies.”’ In this patriarchal farmer of the middle west, Freedom was forging and sh-rpening a terrible weapon that was some day to be turned against Tyranny. Quietly, in peaceful sur- roundings the work was being done; no one knew the fire in this man, least of all himself. oo get 20 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN &, 4s THE GROWTH OF AN ABOLITIONIST For though John Brown had always been an abolitionist, though he had learned from his father, and from his own experiences to hate slavery and its manifold brutalities, it was not until his thirty-fith year that John ’ showed any more active hatred of it than ‘ hundreds of Ohio farmers around him. Like them, he aided when he could, in the work of the Underground Railroad. ousands of ‘ Negroes and white abolitionists were e in this work of passing fugitive slaves from the South up over the Canadian eae where they were being restored to manh under | the Gag of monarchism, But John Brown, in 1834, nem ny thinking» that education of the Negroes might be an im- rtant way toward the solution of their prob ems. He formed plans of starting a : for them. He and his family at this time, though his wool-business was going hey had or ably, lived in extreme fr ty, f fy Be agreed to save all they could toward the > lishment of some such school. For years John ~ Brown dreamed of such ventures as these; and ~ he read all the journals of the small abolition-_ ist groups, and met many of the leaders. He always spoke against slavery in churches or political meetings where he hegneeee to be; and he made friends with man and showed a deep interest in all their problems. But not yet had he formed any of those bellig- erent ges that later were his whole life. He still believed that abolition might be ef- fected by education and peaceful tation. Events were piling up too — y against such a view, however. e South grew more aggressive every day. The slave va seemed — to carry everything before it. It had broken ) ; q : ‘ LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 2i € the agreement of 1820 by extending slaver above the Mason and Dixon line into Missouri. “It had forced the war against Mexico, and had carved out huge new tracts for slavery. It dominated the government of the United States. All of the Presidents were pro-slavery, or they could not hope for office. Congress was pro- slavery, and the Senate, too. And it was not only in the South that the life of an abolitionist was worth little more than a pinch of snuff. The slavery venom had crept into the North, for powerful economic reasons. The Northern merchants and manu- facturers made their profits by selling ma- ~ chinery, and the goods made by machinery, to the agricultural, cotton-raising South. ; the South threatened to secede from the union, or at the least, to force a low tariff on im- ports, and buy its goods in Europe, if the abolitionists were not curbed. There were not many of these abolitionists; but they were outspoken, intense, and made themselves heard at all costs. They paid a heavy price for this courage. They were per- secuted, tarred and feathered, and in many cases lynched by the Northern mobs. Then the Southern slave system seemed to have reached a triumphant climax in two events: the first, the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1851, and the other, the battle over the admission of Kansas as free soil or slave territory, The fugitive slave law incensed John Brown to fury, as it did every other abolitionist. It was a federal law forced by the South which forced the state officials of every Northern state, however much they might hate slavery, to join in the hunt for runaway slaves ani their helpers. A United States sloop was sent to bring back 22 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN ’ a slave who had fled to Boston. The abolition- ists tried to rescue him, but were foiled, with two men killed, Scenes such as these a everywhere in the North, the enforcement the law. Abolitionists were arrested in com- munities where everyone of their neighbors was also anti-slavery. Slaves, who had been freemen for years and years in the North, were captured and dragged back to bondage by govy- ernment officials. a The abolitionists became more fiery in their desperation. Many of them, like Garrison, be- gan preaching that the North set up a govern- ment of its own: “No Union With Slave ~ holders!” was the slogan And the Kansas affair heaped coal on 4 mise. both territory could decide whether or not be wanted slavery or freedom, and could their choice when the territory. was to the union. In other words, both sides would keep their hands off new territory; and the federal government would not interfere. Kansas was such a territory; it was being rapidly settled, and in a few years was to come up for admission as a state. And what was happening was that the South was flooding this territory with spurious set- tlers; idle, whiskey-drinking ruffians armed with shotguns and revolvers, who were in- timidating the Northern settlers who had come, and were stealing the elections from them, by force of arms. The South was openly breaking its agree- ment with the north; it was openly d its intent to make Kansas another addition to the slave states, : ¥ LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 23 To the abolitionists in the North this seemed like the last straw. The South was at its flood-tide of domination; it controlled every- thing in the American union; and now it was moving forward to make its domination permanent by any means; even by the means of murder and intimidation. Reports of assassinations, whippings, and the burning down of Northern settlers’ cabins came every week from Kansas. The abolitionists began raising emigrant companies of North- erners who would go to Kansas to vote for ‘freedom, even though the South sent its cannon against them. The Brown family had by now moved to North Elba, New York, a little Adirondack colony of fugitive Negroes who had settled on the lands owned by Gerrit Smith, a wealthy and sincere abolitionist, John Brown had been of much practical service to the Negroes there; but he and his sons, like every other foe of slavery, were deeply shaken by the events in Kansas. It seemed horrible to everyone, that after twenty years of bitter agitation, slavery was not waning, but was stronger than ever—in- deed, was threatening to swallow up even the North. Strong men were needed in Kansas; and so John Brown’s sons went there. They were men of peace; they went there as bona fide settlers, to take up claims, and to cast their vote, when the time came, for freedom. But in two months they were writing letters to North Elba asking their father to send them all the rifles he could collect. “We have seen some of the curses of slavery, and they are many,” wrote one of the sons in the very first letter home. “The boys have all their feelings worked up, and are ready to ~ t 24 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN fight. Send us arms; we need them more ie we do bread.” ; John Brown collected the arms; was more, he delivered them with hi his hands. He wound u he business aff his strong, patient w e of the Elba farm, and went to — sas. The curtain was now r act of the universal drama called John Br The man of God, the tender friend of slave children, and old, tortured slave m ‘ the man of the plough and the counter, patriarch and citizen was at last ready to come Captain John Brown of John Brown, the outlaw, the warrior, the of freedom. At the mere mention of his name B Ruffians and swashbuc adherents — slavery were soon to tremble and even | as though a devil were behind. And he w bowed with cares and ee turning gra) and he had never handled fire-arms; and he was at the age when other men begin to talk of retiring from business and life, —— long for peace and reflection, in som meer scene, away from the world & pro He was fifty-five years old, "Tes an ea? a THE SITUATION IN KANSAS “ As John Brown left for Kansas, he turned to his wife and the remaining members of his — family and said: “If it is so painful for us og part with the hope of mee again, how m it be with the poor slaves, who have no Aries John Brown was always eters hha aan . tures; but the events before bf ere LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 25 tried the hope of a superman; they were to be bloody, exacting, terrible, It was what he ; needed, however, for John Brown went to Kan- sas with a greater project in his mind, the attack on Virginia and the South, and Kansas was to be for him the rough, harsh school in ay he could train himself for that supreme effort. With his youngest son, Oliver, then about eighteen years old, and a son-in-law, Henry Thompson, John Brown left Chicago in August. The party had a heavily loaded wagon drawn by a “nice, stout young horse,’ that was stricken with distemper when they reached Missouri, and could barely drag himself along. Their progress was therefore slow; a scant Seven or eight miles a day. But it gave them an opportunity to see and hear things in Mis- souri, then fiercely pro-slavery, and the reser- voir from which were drawn most of the Border Ruffins who were raiding Kansas, and trying to force it into the phalanx of slavery states. Companies of armed men were constantly ; passing and re-passing on the route to Kansas, and they were continually boasting “of what deeds of patriotism and chivalry they had per- formed there, and of the still more mighty deeds they were yet to do.” As Brown wrote home in a letter. “No man of them would blush when telling of their cruel treading down and terrifying of defenceless Free State men; seemed to take peculiar satisfaction in telling of the fine horses and mules they had killed in their numerous expeditions against the damned Abolitionists.” John Brown was roused by all this; already he was changing from the peaceful patriarch to the fearless warrior in the field. me incident illustrates this. When the little party reached the Missouri River at Brunswick, Missouri, There came to them an old man, frankly sourian, frankly inguisitive after the manner of the frontier. here are you 2 asked. “To Kansas,” repli Soke Eleaee “Where from?” asked the old man. “From Ne York,” answered John Brown. “You won’t live to get there,” the old Mis.” sourian said, grimly. “We are cere John B “not to die alone.” Before that apart 4 and eagle Bog the old Missourian quailed; he 26 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN they sat themselves down to wait for the ferry. mh was in October, after an arduous tri John Brown and his party reached the ily settlement at Osawotamie. The i weary and all but me by with about 4 cents between them. they found the b tlement in great distress; ssi of the 2 the rough conditions. They were living in a tent exposed to the chill winds, and were rei ee over little fires on the bare ground. All the food left was a small ry of = , nae their cows, some corn and a It was an unusually cold winter that eae October 26 John Brown saw the hardest f ing he had ever witnessed south of his farm-house in the Adirondacks; and all | Spe pioneers suffered in it as did e TOWDS. Nobody in Kansas that first winter knew what comforts ahr While the Browns d the penalty for living on low ground a ravine and in tents, their bitter experience with sickness and hunger was not as bad as that of many other Northern families. Starvation and death looked in at many a door where parents lay Loa while famished children crawléd about the dirt floors crying for food, and shriek- LIFE QF JOHN BROWN 27 ing with fear if any footstep approached, lest the comer be a Border Ruffian, (as the South- erners were called) instead of a friend. For _ pure misery and heart-breaking suffering these pioneer tales of Kansas are not surpassed by any in the whole history of the winning of the West. ‘ But old Jonn Brown was indomitable; he put new life and energy into his six sons; by No- vember two shanties were well advanced, and the food problem had been lightened. They were getting into good shape for the winter, and preparing to take up their share in the settling of Kansas, when the hot breath of war scorched all these plans, as it did many another Northern settler’s. There would be little time for growing corn for the Browns thereafter, or for the other settlers; the slavery question demanded an answer first. One dread that had worried the Browns be- fore leaving home proved unnecessary. It was their fear of the Indians. The Browns were terrified when the first big band of Sacs and Foxes in war-paint surrounded their tent, whooping and yelling, but they had the good sense to ground their arms, and the Indians did likewise. Thereafter both sides were great friends. John, Jr., went often to visit their old chief; once, when in the following summer, the Indians came to call again, they were “fought” with gifts of melons and green corn. “That,” said Jason Brown, “was the nicest party I ever saw.” John Brown, Jr., used to ask the old chief questions, as. “Why do you Sacs and Foxes not build houses and barns like the Ottawas and the Chippewas? Why do you not have schools and churches like the Delawares and Shawnees? wy do you have no preachers and teachers?” And the chief replied in a staccato which sum- 28 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN med up wonderfully the bitter, conte ee ex- perience of his people: “We want d ba Ww t no schools and has! an rns, e@ want n We want no preachers and teachers. We enough now. No, the Indians were friends. The men to be feared were not ge Sie putting in appearance, One night Fd rs age hea’ armed Missourians rode up to the —. asked whether any stray cattle had been The Browns replied in the me and then, as newcomers, they were asked, in the slang, how they were “on the “We are Free State,” was the answer. “and what is more, we are Abolitionists.” The men rode away, but from that moment the Browns were marked for destruction. They did not shrink from danger, however. } nailed their flag to the mast; armed th j e and sey Ae gt the thick of all the poli battles then raging. In a short tim settlement was to become known 7 a center of © fearless, and if poe violent to all who wished to see human slavery intro- duced into the Territory. John Brown’s life work had begun, z h THE BORDER RUFFIANS HOLD AN ELECTION No fair-minded reader of history can dow in glancing over the records of that time, tha the South “took the first bloody and brutal of- fensive in their attempt to force slavery on Kansas. Later, the Free: State men from the north, under leaders like John Brown, Lane and Captain James Monteomeen, ie up arms, too, and defended themselves bra but at first, they were victims of the Sou "5 determination to carry its point. LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 29 The Southerners began the attack by stealing the elections for the Territorial legislature. Thousands of Missourians, on horseback and in wagons, with guns, bowie-knives, revolvers and plenty of whisky, poured over the line in November, 1854, and encamped near the polling places. The ballot boxes were extravagantly, even humorously, stuffed; the elections were carried for the South. There was nothing con- cealed about the affair; in fact, the Missouri Beweneners had -gaily whipped up recruits for the raid. f Many of these men, Border Ruffians, as the North called them, were hired for the work. Others came for the fun; others because they hated Yankees; others because they were de- vout believers in Slavery. “They wore the most savage looks and gave utterance to the most horrible imprecations and blasphemies,” said Thomas Gladstone, a rela- tive of the great statesm of that name, who was in Kansas at the time. “In groups of drunken, bellowing, blood-thirsty ~ demons, armed to the teeth, they crowded about the bars and shouted for drink, or made the night hideous with noise on the streets.” —~ ~ Their fraudulent Pawnee legislature convened and passed a code of punishments for Free State men. Under the code, no one opposed to slavery in any manner could serve on a jury, or_hold any office in Kansas. : Death itself was the penalty for advising slaves to rebel, or even supplying them with literature that would have that effect. The mere voicing of a belief that slavery was illegal in Kansas was made a grave crime. Any person who said in public that slavery was wrong, or any person who even “introduced into the Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular,”—saying this, was to be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for 30 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN a term of not less than five years. This notorious Clause 12 was obviously aimed at the New York Tribune and other anti-slavery — journals, and was meant to shut off eve i whisper of free speech. And it did not work. For the Free State settlers would not recom 7 nize the legality of the = and d an election of their own. d so there were ~ two legislatures in Kansas Territory, two ernors and governments. All the fighting ; followed centered about this dualism, and about the mad, desperate butcheries and burnings be- gun by the Southerners, when they saw they could not cow the Northerners into pages President Pierce, who was pro-siavary. eS: message to Congress in which he sided with the fraudulent legislature and its code, eo) ing it legal, and threatening the Free , men, whom he called traitors, insurrectionists, — and ‘seditionists against the United States gov- \ } 2" — ernment. In all the Kansaseconflict, he threw federal troops and federal politicians st the Free State men. The South rejoi at his stand, — but the Free State men went on with their — work. And John Brown and his sons took a leading position in the fight. . { THE SACK OF LAWRENCE “Yet we will continue to tar d feather drown, lynch and hang every white-live abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil,” said a flamboyant editorial in the uatter Sover- eign, a pro-slavery paper published at Atchison, Kansas, a Border Ruffian stronghold. The Slaveryites lived up to this promise. The Free State men at this time had not begun to arm, but doggedly and quietly went about — organizing their own government at Topeka. » gta LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 31 Their actions infuriated the Southerners. Now began the long list of crimes that made the soil of Kansas reek with blood. | It would be impossible to give a full record here of all those crimes. The least that hap- pened was the destruction of newspapers that protested against Southern injustice, such as the Parkville, Missouri, Luminary, which was burned down, the machinery thrown in the river, and the editors threatened with a sim- - ilar fate if they indulged in further free speech. There were hundreds of abolitionists mur- dered in Kansas; hundreds of their wives and children were gibed at and threatened and ter- rified; hundreds of their cabins were burnt down, and thousands of head of cattle stolen. One of the murders was the killing of Samuel Collins, owner of a saw-mill near Atchison, by Patrick Laughlin, a pro-slavery man. No et- fort was made to punish him by the authorities. But something was done by them in another case. Charles Dow, a young Free State man from Ohio, was cruelly shot down from behind by Franklin Coleman, a pro-slavery settler from Virginia. What the authorities did in this case was to arrest Jacob Branson, with whom the dead man had lived. A pro-slavery sheriff charged Branson with having made threats to revenge his friend. Branson was rescued by a group of his friends with rifles, and taken to Law- rence for protection, Lawrence being entirely settled by the Free State men. The Sheriff called on the Governor, and the Governor called on the militia, and with the _ aid of Missouri citizens, about twelve hundred armed men marched on Lawrence, to “put down the rebellion.” The men of Lawrence sent out a call to all Northerners; and John Brown and his men were among those who responded, There were $2 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN a i. five hundred settlers in Lawren and feverishly fortified the town with ambeaie ments; but the whole affair ended by a com- promise; there was no fighting; only two men were killed in a light skirmish. they had not been given the chance to burn Lawrence down. a For Lawrence was a sore spot to the pra slavery men. It was the largest Free pi town in Kansas, and the center of all political activities of that up. It publishe, a newspaper, and its Free State Hotel was the : headquarters of the Northerner’s government. There were other murders, despite the treaty signed at this time. And then in February, — as Free State men were holding another of their elections, they were assaulted at Leaven- — worth, and many of them forced to flee to Lawrence. One of the leaders of the Free State mene as he was returning from Leavenworth the election, was captured by a company of Border Ruffian militia. Wounded and defence- less though he was, they literally hacked the unfortunate foe of slavery into pieces with their hatchets and knives. Not an effort was made to punish these murderers, though their names were known by everyone. Some of the slavery journals even praised the deed, and called for more. Said the Kansas Pioneer of Kickapoo: “Sound the bugle of war over the length and breadth of the land, and leave not am Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treacherous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts.” LIFE OF JOHN BROWN 33 And in May of that year, after further alarms and disturbances, Sheriff Jones returned witua an army of 750 “swearing, whisky-drinking ruf- fians,” armed with rifles, and even two pieces of artillery. This time the Free State men were unprepared. John Brown was not there, mor any other real leader. The Free State men still believed in peace, and legality. And they saw their Free State Hotel go up in flames, their newspaper plant destroyed, and an orgy of drunken destruction let loose among their homes. _ “Let Yankees tremble, Abolitionists fall, » Our Motto is, Give Southern Rights to All.” This was the-inscription on one of the ban- ners of the invading army. Lawrence was the first city to receive these rights. Thereafter Free State men knew what to expect; they be- gan forming companies of riflemen and guer- Trilla fighters to protect their communities against Southern rights. THE LIBERTY GUARDS _. One of these companies was the Liberty Guards, as commander of which John Brown first received his historic title of Captain. Be- sides four of Brown’s stalwart sons, there were fourteen other Free State settlers in the com- pany, and they were present at the first at- tempted raid on Lawrence, which had resulted in a compromise and an abortive “treaty.” _ Captain John Brown had gathered his men, and Was on the way to Lawrence for the second time when they were informed by a messenger that Lawrence had already been destroyed. The Border Ruffians had captured the town with- out meeting any resistance, and ha¢ razed it a 34 LIFE OF JOHN BROWN to the ground, the breathless courier reported. This startling news was received in a bitter silence by the little company. The ey pushed io nevertheless, and encamped near hearing from —