Wendell Phillips speaking at the grave of John Brown said: "Insurrection
was a harsh, horrid word to millions a month ago. John Brown went a
whole generation beyond it, claiming the right for white men to help the
slave to freedom by arms. And now men run up and down not disputing his
principles."[326]
Admiral Chadwick in his recent work, _The Causes of the Civil War_, thus
presents the position of prominent Abolitionists with respect to servile
insurrections and especially the efforts to precipitate one at Harper's
Ferry:
"Parker was also one who could say, 'I should like of all things to
see an insurrection of slaves. It must be tried many times before it
succeeds, as at last it must,' an expression which was the outcome of
his own full knowledge of what was brewing. Of this the others of the
Boston Secret Committee, Stearns, Higginson, Howe, and Sanborn, as
already shown on the authority of the last, also had full information,
as had Gerrit Smith, with the exception, perhaps, of the exact place
at which Brown was to strike. Brown's funds were supplied by these
men, who were accessories before the fact in the fullest meaning of
the phrase. It is impossible to justify such actions.
"Stearns and his fellows were not martyrs; they did not risk their
lives; they were not in open warfare; they were simply in secret
conspiracy to carry by bolder instruments throughout the South the
horrors of Hayti, still vivid in the recollection of many then yet
living."[327]