HOW THE CALL CAME
Thus, then, did this family live their life of preparation. But
eventful days were at hand, and John Brown felt that his real life-work
had yet to come. 'I have never,' he said, 'for twenty years made any
business arrangement that would prevent me at any time from answering
the call of the Lord. I have kept my affairs in such a condition that
in two weeks I could wind them up and be ready to obey that call,
permitting nothing to stand in the way of duty, neither wife, children,
nor worldly goods; whenever the time should come, I was ready.' Now
truly it seemed as if 'God's judgements' were to be abroad in the
earth, as if He was 'travelling in the greatness of His strength,
mighty to save' the oppressed; as if 'the Day of Vengeance' were in His
heart, and the 'Year of His redeemed was come'; and, said John Brown's
heart, 'He shall find one loyal henchman; I am ready.'
John Brown's call seemed to come after this wise. The enrolment of
each New State in the Union was the occasion of fierce contention as to
whether the territories should be free or whether slavery should be
permitted. Each party had sought at such junctures to score an
advantage, for the balance was often a very fine one between them.
The spirit of compromise had from the earliest days prevailed upon the
thorny question. Washington was against slavery. Statesmen like Adams,
Franklin, Madison, and Munroe had opposed it; but others had been
willing to purchase the preservation of Union by concessions to the
South, and toleration had been their consistent policy.
The Missouri compromise in 1820 had apparently settled the question as
to the new State of Kansas, for all future States north of the latitude
36d 30m were to be free. But at the enrolment of Kansas the slave
party circumvented this statute, and ensured local option for the State
upon this matter. In 1854 the new State of Kansas proceeded to
determine for itself once for all by popular election the grave
question whether she was to be a Slave or a Free State. But in these
young States, which were being almost daily reinforced by new
residents, each at once entitled to vote, the slave party saw a rare
opportunity for the manufacture of faggot votes. What was to hinder
the inhabitants of Missouri, the neighbouring State--who were slavery
men--from going over in a body and voting! Couldn't men migrate and
change their minds? Scandalous, you say. It was. But the scandal was
actually perpetrated. None other than the acting Vice-President of the
United States advised this course, and he found many ready to improve
upon his instructions. One official stated: 'To those who have qualms
of conscience as to violating laws, State or National, I say the time
has come when such impositions must be disregarded, since your rights
and property are at stake. And I advise you one and all to enter every
election district in Kansas and vote at the point of the bowie-knife
and, the revolver.'
Thus, a thousand strong, with two cannon in their procession, the armed
ruffians went to vote at an election out of their own State. If brave
election judges protested--and some did, in spite of cocked pistols at
their heads (like true lawyers ready to die for justice' sake)--and
required the mob to establish their claims, they were overpowered; the
ruffians seized the ballot-boxes, and in the end there were 4,908 votes
cast, though there were only 1,410 genuine voters in the State. Such
was the deliberate report of a committee years after. The Legislature
thus elected met and were suffered to make a Statute Book for the young
State. Penalties of imprisonment and death were liberally appointed
for all who should dare to resist the institution of slavery.
With such legislation to shield their lawlessness, ruffians belonging
to the class of 'mean whites' commenced a series of barbarous outrages
in the interests of the slave-holders--a series sickening to
contemplate. Two instances may be quoted which are typical:
A ruffian bets that he will scalp an Abolitionist in true Indian
fashion, and rides out in search of his prey. A gentleman known to be
opposed to slavery is met in a gig and shot; and, taking his scalp, the
drunken fiend rides back, and producing the promised spoil, claims his
due.
Another leader of the Free-State men is surrounded by these desperate
ruffians, and his skull and brain are cloven with a hatchet. In
fiendish glee they dance upon the almost breathless man, who vainly
pleads, 'Do not abuse me, I am dying.' The only response is a shower
of tobacco juice from their filthy lips into his pleading eyes. With
his last breath he says, 'It is in a good cause,' and so
dies--slaughtered because he dared to say others should share in his
right of liberty. True, dying man, the cause is good and will triumph,
though thou and many others die first!
Such scenes roused the ire of the long-suffering Free-State men of
Kansas. Redress there was none, save in their own right arm, for, as
Emerson says, 'A plundered man might take his case to the court and
find the ring-leader who has robbed him dismounting from his own horse
and unbuckling his knife to sit as judge.'
They were not without allies. There might be no government aid from
Washington, but throughout the North were men who loved the cause of
Abolition better than their own ease, and they came in ever-increasing
numbers. Amongst them were several of Brown's upgrown sons, followed
by their father, ready to settle in this new State, where they might
turn the tide of public opinion in favour of Freedom.
Thus slowly the ranks of the righteous lovers of liberty were
replenished, and they began to form into bands for mutual protection,
farming and soldiering by turns as necessity dictated.
Some of John Brown's Northern friends, who knew the stuff of which he
was made, and saw that if Freedom had no blow struck on her behalf she
would be driven by outrage-mongers out of Kansas, equipped him with
money and rifles, or, as they had come to be called, 'Beecher
Bibles'--a tribute to Henry Ward Beecher's ardent championship of
advanced views upon the slavery question.
On October 6, 1855, he arrived at Osawatomie, and we find him writing
cheery words to his brave second wife and their family whom he had
left, telling them to hope in God and comfort one another, humbly
trusting they may meet again on God's earth, and if not--for his vow is
'to the death'--that they may meet in God's heaven. Of that second
wife--heroine in obscurity, sharer of the oath which ever knit the
household in one, mother of thirteen children--we might say much, but
her spirit breathes in these words she speaks concerning her solitary
days:
'That was the time in my life when all my religion, all my philosophy,
and all my faith in God's goodness were put to the test. My husband
was away from home, prostrated by sickness; I was helpless from
illness; in one week three of my little ones died of dysentery--this
but three months before the birth of another child. Three years after
this sad time another little one, eighteen months old, was burned to
death. Yet even in these trials God upheld me.'
Such was the wife who, while John Brown fought for liberty, grudged him
not to such a cause, and patiently trained others who should bear his
name worthily in days to come.