Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/161

Rh come here to stay. We won't make no war on them as minds their own business; but all the Abolitionists, such as them damned Browns over there, we're going to whip, drive out, or kill,—any way to get shut of them, by God!

Many of the intended victims were openly mentioned, and every word said was calmly written down in John Brown's surveyor's book. Soon this information was corroborated by the Southern camp being moved nearer the Brown settlement. Secret marauding and stealing began. Brown warned the intended victims, and, at a night meeting, it seems to have been decided that at the first sign of a move on the part of the "border ruffians" the ringleaders should be seized and lynched. Not only was this the opinion at Osawatomie, but secret councils throughout the state were beginning to lose faith in conciliation and compromise, and to listen to more radical advice. From Lawrence, too, there came encouragement to John Brown to take the lead in this darker forward movement. There was little open talk or explicit declaration, but it was generally understood that the next aggressive move in the Swamp of the Swan meant retaliation and that John Brown would strike the blow.

While, however, the free state leaders were willing to let this radical hater of slavery thus defend the frontiers of their cause, they themselves deemed it wise still to stick to the policy of passive