WAYLAND, Mass, Oct. 26,
1859.
Dear Capt. Brown:
Though personally unknown to you, you will recognize in my name an earnest
friend of Kansas, when circumstances made that Territory the battle-ground
between the antagonistic principles of slavery and freedom, which politicians
so vainly strive to reconcile in the government of the United States.
Believing in peace principles, I cannot sympathize with the
method you chose to advance the cause of freedom. But I honor your generous
intentions — I admire your courage, moral and physical. I reverence you for the
humanity which tempered your zeal. I sympathize with you in your cruel
bereavement, your sufferings, and your wrongs. In brief, I love you and bless
you.
Thousands of hearts are throbbing with sympathy as warm as
mine. I think of you night and day, bleeding in prison, surrounded by hostile
faces, sustained only by trust in God and your own strong heart. I long to
nurse you — to speak to you sisterly words of sympathy and consolation. I have
asked permission of Governor Wise to do so. If the request is not granted, I
cherish the hope that these few Words may at least reach your hands, and afford
you some little solace. May you be strengthened by the conviction that no
honest man ever sheds blood for freedom in vain, however much he may be mistaken
in his efforts. May God sustain you, and carry you through whatsoever may be in
store for you!
Yours, with heartfelt
respect, sympathy and affection,
L. MARIA CHILD.
SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence
between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 14
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