Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/139

Rh, with a single exception in either house,—the two Free Soilers being chosen from a remote district which the Missourians overlooked or did not care to reach.'

"Early in the spring and summer of this year the actual settlers at their convention repudiated this fraudulently chosen legislature, and refused to obey its enactments. Upon this, the border papers of Missouri in flaming appeals urged the ruffian horde that had previously invaded Kansas to arm, and otherwise prepare to march again into the territory when called upon, as they soon would be, to 'aid in enforcing laws.' War of some magnitude, at least, now appeared to us brothers to be inevitable; and I wrote to our father, whose home was in North Elba, N. Y., asking him to procure and send us, if he could, arms and ammunition, so that we could be better prepared to defend ourselves and our neighbors."

John Brown hesitated. His fighting blood was stirred and yet there was the plan of years yet unrealized. Then a new vision dawned in his mind. Perhaps this was the call of the Lord and the path to Virginia might lie through Kansas. He hurriedly consulted his friends—Douglass, McCune Smith, the cultured Negro physician of New York, and Gerrit Smith, and in November, 1854, wrote home: "I feel still pretty much determined to go back to North Elba; but expect Owen and Frederick will set out for Kansas on Monday next, with cattle