RICHMOND, Va, Oct.
29th, 1859.
MADAM; Yours
of the 26th was received by me yesterday, and at my earliest leisure I
respectfully reply to it, that I will forward the letter for John Brown, a
prisoner under our laws, arraigned at the bar of the Circuit Court for the
county of Jefferson, at Charlestown, Va., for the crimes of murder, robbery and
treason, which you ask me to transmit to him. I will comply with your request
in the only way which seems to me proper, by enclosing it to the Commonwealth’s
attorney, with the request that he will ask the permission of the Court to hand
it to the prisoner. Brown, the prisoner, is now in the hands of the judiciary,
not of the executive, of this Commonwealth.
You ask me, further, to allow you to perform the mission “of
mother or sister, to dress his wounds, and speak soothingly to him.” By this,
of course, you mean to be allowed to visit him in his cell, and to minister to
him in the offices of humanity. Why should you not be so allowed, Madam?
Virginia and Massachusetts are involved in no civil war, and the
Constitution which unites them in one confederacy guarantees to you the
privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States in the State of
Virginia. That Constitution I am sworn to support, and am, therefore, bound to
protect your privileges and immunities as a citizen of Massachusetts coming
into Virginia for any lawful and peaceful purpose.
Coming, as you propose, to minister to the captive in
prison, you will be met, doubtless, by all our people, not only in a
chivalrous, but in a Christian spirit. You have the right to visit Charlestown,
Va., Madam; and your mission being merciful and humane, will not only be
allowed, but respected, if not welcomed. A few unenlightened and inconsiderate
persons, fanatical in their modes of thought and action, to maintain justice
and right, might molest you, or be disposed to do so; and this might suggest
the imprudence of risking any experiment upon the peace of a society very much
excited by the crimes with whose chief author you seem to sympathize so much.
But still, I repeat, your motives and avowed purpose are lawful and peaceful,
and I will, as far as I am concerned, do my duty in protecting your rights in
our limits. Virginia and her authorities would be weak indeed — weak in point
of folly, and weak in point of power — if her State faith and constitutional
obligations cannot be redeemed in her own limits to the letter of morality as
well as of law; and if her chivalry cannot courteously receive a lady’s visit
to a. prisoner, every arm which guards Brown from rescue on the one hand, and
from lynch law on the other, will be ready to guard your person in Virginia.
I could not permit an insult even to woman in her walk of
charity among us, though it be to one who whetted knives of butchery for our mothers,
sisters, daughters and babes. We have no
sympathy with your sentiments of sympathy with Brown, and are surprised that
you were “taken by surprise when news came of Capt. Brown’s recent attempt.” His
attempt was a natural consequence of your sympathy, and the errors of that
sympathy ought to make you doubt its virtue from the effect on his conduct. But
it is not of this I should speak. When you arrive at Charlestown, if you go
there, it will be for the Court and its officers, the Commonwealth’s attorney,
sheriff and jailer, to say whether you may see and wait on the prisoner. But,
whether you are thus permitted or not, (and you will be, if my advice can
prevail,) you may rest assured that he will be humanely, lawfully and
mercifully dealt by in prison and on trial.
Respectfully,
HENRY A. WISE.
SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence
between L. M. Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 4-6
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