The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-10-20
The Outbreak Mt Harper's Ferry-Com-
Pltcity OF Leading Abolitionists and
Black Republicans.

The Outbreak Mt Harper's Ferry-Com-t
plicity OF Leading Abolitionists and
Black Republicans.
Our Washington and Baltimore dispatches
published in our columns to-day give a full.
interesting and highly significant account of
the closing scenes Of the instruction set on
foot at Harper's Ferry. The affair, which was
commenced on Sunday night last, was sup
pressed SO soon as the regular troops could
reach the scene of action. The five prisoners
who fell into the hands of the troops, including
Ossawattomie Brown, whose wounds are said
not to be dangerous, were sent yesterday un-
der a strong escort to Charlestown, Va, where
they arc TO be tried for murder. The Circuit
Court opens to-day. Indictments will be
found, and the trials will take place imme-
diately. In Browns house was found quite a
magazine Of arms and ammunition, besides the
constitution and ordinances of the conspirators,
and other papers, duplicating Gerrit Smith,
Joshua R. Giddings, Fred. Douglass, and other
abolitionists and black republicans
The President, and the officers and troops
acting under his orders, have acted in the mat
ter with degree of promptitude which de-
serves the thanks of the country. That the end
Of the conspirators will be the end Of rope.
an ignominious death without even the empty
honors Of martyrdom, no one can doubt for an
instant.
The attempt of Brown and his men was re-
markable in more ways than one. In the first
place, he was notorious Kansas-shrieker-one
whose hapds had more than once been dipped
in human blood. He finally left Kansas and
came to the East, where Mr.. Stewards Emf
grafton Aid Society friends supplied funds
wherewith to stir up servile insurrection in
Virginia, which it was expected would extend
throughout the border slave States The
Sharp's rifles bought for Kansas by the Seward
men were to be placed in the hands of the
slaves, who were expected to rob and shoot
down their masters, thus beginning the "irre-
pressible conflict to which Mr.. Seward alluded
in his brutal and bloody Rochester manifesto.
But although Brown and his eighteen COM
rades managed to seize the government ar
mory, where no less than two hundred men are
constantly employed, and to hold possession
of town of some three or four thousand in
habitants from Sunday night till Monday even.
ing, the affair was miserable failure. The
slaves, without exception, refused to join in it.
Brown had but four or five blacks under his COM
mand, and they were freemen. This fact shows
very plainly that the negroes themselves are
not ready to accept what Mr.. Gerrit Smith
calls their last resort. As to the whites of the
fhoro ha hut AL 4 4
that had Brown beeaable to hold out a few days
longer, his standard would have received nu-
merous accessions from the North and West.
The ''irrcpressible conflict" would then have
been commenced, and before it could have
ended much bloodshed would have ensued.
Such was undoubtedly the Seward programme.
Thus the affair at Harper's Ferry is one of
the straws that show which way the political
wind blows. Its lesson should not be misun.
derstood. Let the Southern opposition men,
bers OF Congress, when they come to the
organization Of the House, not forget the Har.
per's Ferry outbreak and the lesson 1t teaches
them. That Mr.. Seward is the arch-arita.
tor who is responsible for this instruction no
one who has read his Rochester manifesto can
deny. That his elevation to the Presidency
would stimulate seryile instructions all over
the Southern country, is likewise beyond per-
adventure Mr.. Seward once in the White
House, his doctrines, howsoever fanatical, or
brutal, or bloody, or cruel they may be, have
q degree Of Importance and weight which they
Gun OBTAIN in no other way; and while we
should be among the last persons in the world to
prediot anything like real danger 10 the Unto