The Portage County Democrat. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-11-16
Capt. John Browns Monomania.

The Chicago Press in noticing the Virgin
ia iusurrectionary attempt, thus speaks of Os-
sawatomie Brown - nod! fH7-3''i .s1@ ,s-rs-
Since the death of his son Frederick, who
was shot down at his own door in Kansas, By
a Missouri mob tenfold more reveGgefuI and
bloody than that which now fills Virginia with
terror, and since the old man witnessed, on the
same occasion, the destruction Of the proper-
ty that he had been life time in accumulate
ing, he has been monomaniac. He had sup
posed himself divinely appointed to free all
American slaves by some violent and decisive
movement, the nature OF which we do not
know that he ever revealed. & Often, we are
told. during the Kansas disturbances he would
retire to a secluded place at o distance from
his camp, and there TO use his own words
wrestle with the Almighty for hours, to wiring
from Him the aid which be demanded iu the
accomplishment of the work to which he thot'
himself appointed by heavenly favor. His
talk for years to his friends and intimates has
been of bis commission sealed with the blood
of the Savior, by which he was directed 10 the
path that be was about to follow. He has
entertained no doubt that his life was TO be
prolonged until he could see the shackles
stricken off from every slave in the land ; nor
has he had a doubt that by his agency. as the
instrument of God, specially entrusted with
the work. every bondmen was to be freed
This delusion has been regarded as harmless
and since he pas ed out of public vi-w, it has,
we suppose, been forgotten even by his friends
That he has acted upon the murderous impulse
which the violation OF his own household
reused within him-that his mania has over
powered his reason, and forced him into the
commission of great crime-the his,o of
this Harpers Ferry movement is sufficient
proof. We do not wonder, knowing him, from
the accounts giyen by others, as well as we do,
that ne engaged in an enterprise of such Grim.
inality and folly. We are only surprised that
he could have found any white man out of
Slavery weak enough to have yielded to his
crazy suggestions and aided him in his hair
Drained attempt. He will doubtless be call
ed upon to lay down his life IN attonement for
his folly; and though our conviction that he is
demented, ia strengthened by this recent event,
We can bat say that death canrot claim him
too soon. 30. f..,..--..,,s, -..
The New York York Herald, in reviewing
the late State elections, arrives at the follow
ing conclusions ,..,..,.
'First-That the Democratic party Of the
Northen States is in that melancholy coEdi-
tion of a sick man which affords no symptoms
Second-That the late great American, or
third party of the North, has disappeared and
ceased to exist; and f5
Third-That henceforth, to the close of the
Presidential campaign of 1860, there will be
only two parties in the North--the Republi-
can and the Democratie-and that into the
one or the other of these two parties all the
loose materials ofthe North, with some trih-
ing exceptions, will be absorbed : -a.'f2.
The Berald also comedies that
Thus, with the people of the North divid-
ed between two parties in 1860, instead of
three, as in l656,we may say from the North
ern elections of the last and present year, that
in every Northern state this side of the Rocky
Mountains the Democracy will enter into the
contest as demoralized minority party II
How they will emerge form the battle is an
other question:; but from the general drift of
the tide of these October elections. the dulest
politician cannot fail to perceive that an Op-l
position President may be elected in 1860
without the electoral vote Of u solitarJ south.
ern stale. aL& .t-...#l i.t a5