Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/51



says that Brown unfolded to him in 1847 a plan for insurrectionary work among the negroes, with headquarters in the Virginia mountains. This is another indication, one of many, that he entertained the insurrectionary purpose. But his plans remained in abeyance. His later and active interest in the anti-slavery cause seems to have flashed up into a sudden flame about the year 1850. From that time forward his letters abound with references to the subject; his memorandum book contains entries associated with his work in that field, and the motive becomes clearly apparent in his acts. Did Brown's discovery of his own unfitness to be a man of business help him to see more clearly his way toward devoting the remainder of his life to the freeing of the blacks? Did he conceive an ambition to be a great liberator, and