Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/369

 Trial of John Brown. 363

It is not intended in this article to discuss the character or the motives of John Brown. This is left to future historians. He was, if not a lunatic, a dangerous and determined fanatic, who proposed to override the laws of his country, and achieve by unlawful methods his cherished ideas. He announced on his trial that his sole object was the freedom of the slaves. Years before his untimely crusade, some of the ablest of Southern statesmen had formulated plans for the emancipation of slavery, which, but for the mischievous and unlawful interference of such fanatics as Brown, would have been accomplished in peace and under the forms of law. That he was honest in his motives, misguided as were his acts, it is not in our province to dis- cuss. He is, however, sent down to posterity as a saint and a martyr from certain sources, and is extolled in song and story. The cause for which he owned he yielded up his life, the abolition of slavery, became triumphant after the bloodiest war recorded in the annals of the world. It has been honestly accepted by the people most affected by it, and by the civilized world as a proper solution of the question, but the means by which it was brought about may still be a subject of doubt. Regarding the matter of John Brown's thorough devo- tion to the abolition of slavery, outside of personal interests, it is proper to state that Hon. Eli Thayer, in letters to the Boston Herald and New York Sun, shows conclusively that Brown committed with his own hands six deliberate murders. Thayer says : " In Kansas he (Brown) dragged from their beds at midnight three men and two boys and hacked them in pieces with two-edged cleavers in such a way that the massacre was reported to be the work of Indians." He says further that Brown traveled under false names, claiming at one time in Virginia to be a geologist. In several places he professed to be a Dr. McLain, a specialist in hernia, and examined all the negroes whose masters would permit him to do so. In a Presbyterian family he would be a Presbyterian minister, while in a Baptist family he would be a Baptist minister, and so on. He was a chameleon in reli- gion, and could change to suit the spot he found himself on. And to show that Brown's professions for the negro were strongly inter- mingled with personal greed, Mr. Thayer says: " In Missouri he stole about $4,000 worth of oxen, mules, wagons, harness, and such valu- able and portable property as he could find." Such is the estimate of John Brown from the pen of a man who would have no inclination or inducement to do his memory an injustice.

The presiding judge in this historic trial was the Hon. Richard Parker, of Winchester, Virginia, now in his seventy-eighth year.