Two men could have crawled up its flue at the same time.
His refusal did not stop Higginson"s efforts. He appealed to the forlorn wife at North Elba, New York, to go to Harper"s Ferry, ask to see her husband and whisper her plan into his ear. He sent the money and got Mrs. Brown as far as Baltimore on her journey when Brown heard of it and stopped her with a peremptory command.
The determined conspirator then worked up the proposition to buy a steam tug which could make 18 knots an hour, steam up the James River to Richmond, kidnap the Governor of the Commonwealth, Henry Wise, and hold him for ransom until Brown was released. The scheme only failed for the lack of money.
Higginson had seen one thing. Brown saw a bigger thing.
Higginson"s refusal to flee was based on sound psychology. He knew that from the day John Brown struck his brutal blow at the heart of the South and blood had begun to flow, the Blood Feud would be the biggest living fact in the Nation"s history.
He knew that he could remain in Worcester with impunity. The strength of a revolution lies in the fact that its first bloodletting releases the instincts of the animal in man hitherto restrained by law. He knew that Brown"s cry of Liberty for the slave would become for millions the cloak to hide the archaic impulse to kill. He knew that while the purpose of civilization is to restrain and control these instincts of the beast in man--it was too late for the forces of Law and Order to rally in the North. The first outbursts of indignation against Brown would quickly pa.s.s. They would be futile.
He read them with a smile. The _New York Herald_ said: "He has met with a fate which he courted, but his death and the punishment of all his criminal a.s.sociates will be as a feather in the balance against the mischievous consequences which will probably follow from the rekindling of the slavery excitement in the South."
The _Tribune_ took the lead in dismissing the act as the deed of a madman. The Hartford _Evening News_ declared:
"Brown is a poor, demented, old man. The calamity would never have occurred had there been no lawless and criminal invasion of Kansas."
But the most significant utterance in the North came from the Pacifist leader of Abolition, William Lloyd Garrison, himself. Higginson read it with a cry of joy.
_The Liberator"s_ words of comment were brief but significant of the coming mob mind:
"The particulars of a misguided, wild, and apparently insane, through disinterested and well-intended effort by insurrection, to emanc.i.p.ate the slaves in Virginia, under the leadership of Captain John, alias "Osawatomie" Brown, may be found on our third page. Our views of war and bloodshed even in the best of causes, are too well known to need, repeating here; _but let no one who glories in the revolutionary struggle of 1776, deny the right of slaves to imitate the example of our fathers._"
Even the leader of the movement for Abolition by peaceful means had succ.u.mbed to the poison of the smell of human blood.
Higginson knew that the process of a revolution was always in the order of Ideas, Leaders, The Mob, The Tread of Armies. For thirty years Garrison and the Abolition Crusaders had spread the Ideas. The Inspired Leader had at last appeared. His right arm had struck the first blow. He could hear the roar of the coming mob whose impulse to murder had been roused. It would call their ancestral soul. The answer was a certainty.
He could see no necessity for Brown"s blood to be spilled in martyrdom.
The old man, walking with burning eyes toward his trial, knew better.
His vision was clear. G.o.d had revealed His full purpose at last. He would climb a Virginia gallows and drag millions down, from that scaffold into the grave with him.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
Never in the history of an American commonwealth was a trial conducted with more reverence for Law than the arraignment of John Brown and his followers in the stately old Court House at Charlestown, Virginia.
The people whom he had a.s.saulted with intent to kill, the people against whom he had incited slaves to rise in b.l.o.o.d.y insurrection, the kinsmen of the dead whom his rifles had slain, stood in line on the street and watched him pa.s.s into the building manacled to one of his disciples.
They did not hoot, nor hiss, nor curse. They watched him walk in silence between the tall granite pillars of the House of Justice.
The behavior of this crowd was highwater mark in the development of Southern character. The structure of their society rested on the sanct.i.ty of Law. It was being put to the supreme test.
A Northern crowd under similar conditions, had they followed the principles which John Brown preached, would have torn those prisoners to pieces without the formality of a trial.
It was precisely this trait of character in his enemies on which Brown relied for the martyrdom he so pa.s.sionately desired. When the witnesses at the preliminary hearing had testified to his guilt and the Court had ordered the trial set, he was asked if he had counsel.
He rose from his seat and addressed the nation, not the Court:
"Virginians, I did not ask for any quarter at the time I was taken.
I did not ask to have my life spared. The Governor of the State of Virginia tenders me his a.s.surance that I shall have a fair trial, but under no circ.u.mstances whatever will I be able to have a fair trial. If you seek my blood, you can have it at any moment, without this mockery of a trial. I have no counsel. I am ready for my fate. I do not wish a trial. I have now little further to ask, other than that I may not be foolishly insulted, as cowardly barbarians insult those who fall into their power."
The posing martyr was courting insults which had not been offered him. He was grieved that he could not bring the charge of barbarous treatment. He had been treated by Colonel Lee with the utmost consideration. His wounds had been dressed. He had received the best medical care. He had eaten wholesome food. His jailer had proven friendly and sympathetic.
He went out of his way to insult the Court and the people and invite abuse. He demanded that he be executed without trial.
The Court calmly a.s.signed him two of the ablest lawyers in the county, and ordered the trial to proceed.
At noon the following day the Grand Jury returned a true bill against each of the prisoners for treason to the commonwealth, and for conspiring with slaves to commit both treason and murder, and for murder.
Captain Avis, the kindly jailer, was ordered to bring his prisoners into Court. He found old Brown in bed, pretending to be ill. He refused to rise. He was determined to get the effect of an arraignment of his prostrate body in the court room. He had foreseen the effect of this picture on the imagination of the North. The crowd of eager reporters at the preliminary hearing had given him the cue.
He was carried into the court room exactly as he had desired, on a cot.
While the hearing proceeded he lay with his eyes closed as if in deep suffering. He had carefully prepared a plea for delay which he knew would not be granted. Its effect on the mob mind of the North was what he sought. The press would give it wings.
He lifted himself on his elbow and asked Judge Parker to allow him to make a protest:
"I have been promised a fair trial. I am not now in circ.u.mstances that enable me to attend a trial, owing to the state of my health. I have a severe wound in the back, or rather in one kidney which enfeebles me very much. But I am doing well, and I only ask for a very short delay of my trial, that I may be able to listen to it! And I merely ask this that, as the saying is, the devil may have his dues, no more. I wish to say further that my hearing is impaired by wounds I have about my head.
I could not hear what the Court said this morning. I would be glad to hear what is said at my trial. Any short delay would be all I would ask.
I do not presume to ask more than a very short delay so that I may in some degree recover and be able at least to listen to my trial."
Dr. Mason the attending physician, swore that he had examined Brown, and that his wounds had effected neither his hearing nor his mind. He further swore that he was not seriously disabled.
Brown knew that this was true, but he had entered his plea. His words would flash over the nation. The effect was what he foresaw. Although he had defied the laws of G.o.d and man, he dared demand more than justice under the laws which he had spit upon. And, however inconsistent his position, he knew that as the poison of the Blood Feud which he was raising filled the souls of the people through the press, he would be glorified from day to day and new power given to every word he might utter.
He had already composed his last message destined to sway the minds of millions. The response of the radical press to his pose of illness was quick and sharp. The Lawrence, Kansas, _Republican_ voiced the feelings of thousands:
"We defy an instance to be shown in any civilized community where a prisoner has been forced to trial for his life, when so disabled by sickness or ghastly wounds as to be unable even to sit up during the proceedings, and compelled to be carried to the judgment hall upon a litter. Such a proceeding shames the name of Justice, and only finds a congenial place amid the records of the b.l.o.o.d.y Inquisition."
Even so conservative a paper as the Boston _Transcript_ said:
"Whatever may be his guilt or folly, a man convicted under such circ.u.mstances, and, especially, a man executed after such a trial, will be the most terrible fruit that Slavery has ever borne, and will excite the execration of the civilized world."
The canny old poseur was on his way to an immortal martyrdom. He knew that every article of the Virginia Code was being scrupulously obeyed.
He knew that the Grand Jury was in session and that the trial was set at the first term of the court following the crime. There had been no haste. He also knew that the impartial Judge who was presiding was the soul of justice in his dealings both with the clamorous people, the prosecution and the counsel appointed for the defense. But he also knew that the mob mind to whom he was appealing would not believe that he knew this. In appeals to the crowd he was a past master. In this appeal he knew that facts would count for nothing--beliefs, illusions for everything.
He played each opportunity for all it was worth.
When the Court opened the following morning, his counsel, Mr. Botts, amazed the prisoner and the prosecution by reading a telegram from Ohio asking a delay on the ground that important affidavits were on the way to prove legally that John Brown was insane. Before the old man could stop him he gave to the Court the substance of these sworn statements.
His friends and relatives in Ohio had sworn that Brown had been always a monomaniac and had been intermittently insane for twenty years. One swore that he had been plainly insane for a quarter of a century. On the family record of insanity the affidavits all agreed. His grandmother was hopelessly insane for six years and died insane. His uncles and aunts, two sons and two daughters had been intermittently insane for years, while one of his daughters had died a hopeless maniac. His only sister, her daughter and one of his brothers were insane at intervals. Two of his first cousins were occasionally mad. Two had been committed to the State Insane Asylum repeatedly and two others were at that time in close restraint.
Brown refused to allow this plea to be entered. He bitterly denounced the counsel a.s.signed to him as traitors, and at their request the following day they were allowed to withdraw from the case. No sooner had he finished his denunciation of his counsel than Hoyt, the young alleged attorney, sent by Higginson to defend him, sprang to his feet and asked a delay, as he was unprepared to proceed without a.s.sistance.
The Judge adjourned the Court until the following morning at ten o"clock.
The young spy knew nothing of law but he bluffed it through until the arrival of two able attorneys, Samuel Chilton of Washington, and Hiram Grismer of Cleveland.
Botts, the dismissed counsel, who had sought to save Brown"s life by the plea of insanity, put his notes and his office at the disposal of Hoyt and sat up all night with him preparing his work for the following day.