Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/160

152 but I think he may find his hands full before it is all over." And Joshua E. Giddings assures him that the President "never will dare to employ the troops of the United States to shoot the citizens of Kansas." Yet the President did dare. Not only were regular troops put into the hands of the Kansas slave power, but armed bands from the South appeared, and one in particular from Georgia encamped on the Swamp of the Swan near the Brown settlement. John Brown's procedure was characteristic. With his surveying instruments in hand one May morning, he sauntered into their camp. He was immediately taken for a government surveyor and consequently "sound on the goose," for "every governor sent here, every secretary, every judge, every Indian agent, every land surveyor, every clerk in every office, believed in making Kansas a slave state. All the money sent here by the national government was disbursed by pro-slavery officials to pro-slavery menials." Brown took with him, his son says, "four of my brothers,—Owen, Frederick, Salmon, and Oliver,—as chain carriers, axman, and marker, and found a section line which, on following, led through the camp of these men. The Georgians indulged in the utmost freedom of expression. One of them, who appeared to be the Leader of the company, said: 'We've