Page:The Natick resolution, or, resistance to slaveholders.djvu/16

14 you and Virginia exhorted him to do—i.e., ! No; he was kind to the tyrants, to his own injury. He simply sought to lead some slaves, imbruted by you and your copartners in crime, to a land of freedom. By your official seal and Constitution, and your historical reminiscences, you invited John Brown to come to Harper's Ferry and run off slaves, and to kill all who should oppose him. You and Virginia declared that it was the right and duty of the slaves to rise against their masters, and to gain their freedom by running away, or by beheading their oppressors; and you told him it was his right and duty to help them. John Brown came, with twenty-one assistants, to help him in a work which you and all Virginia acknowledge would have been a work of love, justice, and humanity, had it been done to free you from slavery. You mustered the State, called on the United States to hasten to your aid, surrounded the self-forgetting hero and his little band, and shot or hung them, deeming that you did a brave and heroic act! You mustered the State and nation to the defence of your property, your wives and children, your houses and lives, against twenty-one men, who had no thought of harm to you, but simply thought to give freedom to slaves. Such bravery must, one day, be appreciated. He was as innocent as were Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, and Patrick Henry, and far more deserving the approval of mankind. You took him, bound him hand and foot, blindfolded him, and then broke his neck! Yourself and Virginia being witnesses, are you not a ? Verily, you have your reward!

Why have you and Virginia hung John Brown? To defend your property, (your slaves,) your liberty and lives, against robbery and murder; and your wives and daughters, your mothers and sisters, against rape and rapine. And not being able to defend yourselves, you and Virginia called on the United States to come and help you. You do, then, hold that it is a right and duty to shoot and hang and behead people in defence of liberty, life and home?

You, then, and Virginia, being witnesses, it is the right and duty of the slaves to defend their earnings, their liberty and lives, by arms and blood; and their wives and daughters against the rapine of their masters. You and your fellow slave-breeders and slave-traders live by robbing