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 tains" to join him, and that there he proposed to operate, making the chain of the Appalachians his base. By flocking to his standard; the blacks would enable him to harass the plantations on either side of the range; and he believed that he could establish impregnable positions in the mountains. He expected that the rising would become general through the Southern States; and; when it had become so, he would organize the freed blacks under his provisional constitution.

Brown was made commander-in-chief under this constitution, John Henry Kagi Secretary of War, Richard Realf Secretary of State, Owen Brown Treasurer, and George B. Gill Secretary of the Treasury. All of these were white; but two colored men were made "members of Congress." The whole organization was the absurdest boys' play, unless we are to consider it a part of Brown's plan to impress the negroes