The affair has excited profound sensation, and, let me add,
profound consternation at the South. The secrecy with which the plot was
brought to maturity, the large quantity of arms and ammunition which Brown had
collected, the facility with which he surprised the village and seized the
armory, the desperate tenacity with which he held it, the resolution displayed
by all his followers from first to last, and more than all, Brown's dauntless
bearing since his capture, the lofty tone of moral superiority which he assumes
over his captors, have made a profound impression on the Southern people. They
have long been in the habit of accusing the abolitionists of tampering with the
negroes and instigating them to flight or revolt, but it was always supposed to
be in an underhand, sneaking way. The popular notion of an abolitionist made
him above all things a coward. But here is at least a small taste of servile
war, avowedly begun by this detested crew, and what manner of men do they find
them to be? Why, 15 of them suffice to raise the whole State of Virginia into
wild affright, to call out all its militia, to bring Federal troops from the
capital, to seize on an armory, and defend it for two days, and when it was at
last stormed by an overwhelming force, 13 of these poltroons are found to have
died at their posts, rifle in hand; two only came out alive, these desperately
wounded and glorying in their crime. It is no wonder if the South feels that an
abyss has opened at their feet.
They first resorted to physical force as a means of
extending slavery in Kansas, counting confidently on Northern pusillanimity.
But the fighting had not gone on very long before the crust of peaceful habits
wore off the Yankees, and the old whining, praying, unconquerable Puritan burst
out. The South, as we know, finding they had raised a legion of devils, quitted
the field and called for peace; but, when Yankees once begin to fight, it grows
on them, and they were not now disposed to cry quits so easily. So the war has
been carried into the enemy's territory. The damage done is, to be sure, very
trifling. Only half a dozen negroes joined Brown's enterprise, but it is
acknowledged that this is mainly to be ascribed to his having chosen a bad
scene of action. In that part of Virginia the negroes are few in number, and a
large number of them house servants, and the farms comparatively small. Had he
thrown himself into the cotton States, amongst the great plantations, where a
thousand blacks often toil for a single owner, — tantalized by hard work,
exposure, and the overseer's lash, — and offered them arms and bid them follow
him, no man dares to say he would have been crushed without untold horrors. The
panic his mad effort has spread proves in what horrible insecurity men dwell
south of Mason and Dixon's line, what a flaming sword hangs suspended over the
whole slave region, and how deeply the white population feels its danger.
I do not defend, and no one can defend, Brown's conduct. His
attempt, had it even half succeeded, could only have bred massacre and
desolation. If the Southerners had themselves failed to restore order, — and my
firm belief is that if a general negro insurrection ever does take place they
will fail, — the North would be compelled, if only for humanity's sake, to step
in and quell the revolt. If the condition of the blacks is ever to be really improved,
it must be peacefully, and gradually. But in spite of all this, no one can see
a gray-headed man, who has lost five sons in the cause of freedom, step in,
with the last survivor of his family by his side, between the slave and his
master, and with his 13 other companions bid defiance to a whole State in the
name of the Lord of Hosts, without more or less admiration. There is something
grand in the old fellow's madness, and those here at the North who most condemn
him, acknowledge him to be well worthy, if not of a better, of a more hopeful
cause, and of a happier fate than that which now awaits him.
SOURCE: Rollo Ogden, Editor, Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Volume 1, p. 190-2
