And they failed to understand that it was not he who was on trial at
the Charlestown court-house a month later, but the whole slavery system.
Every moment of that trial was reported in the newspapers of the
nation. Every reader in America knew of the wonderful strength and
majesty of John Brown in the court-room. The North began thinking about
slavery as it had never thought before. John Brown was so manifestly
pure in his intentions; manifestly a crusader, and people were forced
to try to understand why an old, gray-haired farmer should have taken
up arms at the age of sixty, after a life spent in useful occupations.
His dignity, his piety, his reputation as a terrible fighter, and the
Biblical sublimity of the picture of this white-bearded patriarch
surrounded by his seven sons, all of them armed with rifles, all of
them ready to die for the cause of abolition--these had their powerful
effect on the imagination of the North. Hosts of new friends rose up in
Brown’s defense; legislatures passed resolutions asking for his pardon,
Congressmen began speaking out, newspapers suddenly found themselves in
danger of losing their subscribers if they spoke against John Brown;
everywhere in the North men found themselves waking from a dream, and
coming into the clear, white vision of John Brown. They saw slavery as
if for the first time in all its horrors; they could not help taking
sides. And the South became more and more inflamed with rage as the
trial progressed, and those reverberations reached it from the North.
John Brown was tried on three charges, murder, treason, and inciting
the slaves to rebellion. The trial was quickly over; it was but a
formality. The jury, of course, returned the verdict of guilty, and
John Brown, lying on his cot in the court-room, said not a word, but
turned quietly over on his side, when he heard it.
A few days later, Judge Parker pronounced the sentence of death, and
this time John Brown rose from his cot, and drawing himself up to his
full stature, with flashing eagle eyes, and calm, clear and distinct
tones, he addressed the citizens of America. He said many things that
they were soon to understand clearly on the battlefields of the Civil
War.
“Had I taken up arms in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the
intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends,
or any of their class, every man in this court would have deemed it
an act worthy of reward rather than of punishment. But this Court
acknowledges the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here
which is the Bible, and which teaches me that all things that I would
have men do unto me, so must I do unto them. I endeavored to act up to
that instruction. I fought for the poor; and I say it was right, for
they are as good as any of you; God is no respecter of persons.
“I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always
freely admitted I have done, in behalf of His despised poor, I did no
wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit
my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood
further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions
in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and
unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.”
Judge Parker fixed the date for hanging on December 2nd, 1859, a month
away. It was a fatal mistake for the South, and John Brown’s finest
gift at the hands of the God he believed in.