Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/353

Rh slavery clothed in 1859, and it had to die by revolution, not by milder means. And this men knew. They had known it a hundred years. Yet they shrank and trembled. From round about the white and blinding path of this soul flew equivocations, lies, thievings and red murders. And yet all men instinctively felt that these things were not of the light but of the surrounding darkness. It is at once surprising, baffling and pitiable to see the way in which men—honest American citizens—faced this light. Many types met and answered the argument, John Brown (for he did not use argument, he was himself an argument). First there was the Western American—the typical American, like Charles Robinson—one to whose imagination the empire of the vale of the Mississippi appealed with tremendous force. Then there was the Abolitionist—shading away from him who held slavery an incubus to him who saw its sin, of whom Gerrit Smith was a fair type. Then there was the lover of men, like Dr. Howe, and the merchant-errant like Stearns. Finally, there were the two great fateful types—the master and the slave.

To Robinson, Brown was simply a means to an end—beyond that he was whatever prevailing public opinion indicated. When the gratitude of Osawatomie swelled high, Brown was fit to be named with Jesus Christ; when the wave of Southern reaction subjugated the nation, he was something less than a fanatic. But whatever he was, he was the sword on which struggling Kansas and its leaders could depend, the untarnished doer of its darker