The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1859-12-01
John Brown and his Fate.

Before to-morrow's sun sets John Brown
will probably cease to trouble the shareholders
at least in the flesh. To morrow, the End,
is the day assigned by the Court for his ex
ecution. limitations have been given out
that Gov. Wise would probably postpone his
execution until the 10th, when the other pris-
oners are to suffer the penalty of the law
but we have no positive intelligence that this
has been done; if not, John Brown is near
the end of his earthly career He will die,
the first and notable instance of the trial,
conviction and execution of man for his
opinions. .' r...
No event has ever produced so profound
and widespread sensation in this country.
No ordinary case of crime and the punish
ment Of crime could do it. 1t is no ordinary
case. It's incidents and surroundings,
gave it a peculiar interest and significance,
and account for the excitement which
moves and pervades all classes, in every sec
ton of the country, differently colored &C
cordng to the latitude. This interest and
excitement has not been occasioned by John
Brown and his deluded followers, or the crime
for which they are so shortly to suffer, con-
sidered separately and on their merits, but
by the no less fanatical and much more silly
conduct of the Virginians and their Governor.
In the first place, if the two thousand peo-
pie at Harper's Ferry had not been the ar
rant towards that they were, John Brown
and his army of a dozen and half would
have been taken, tried and hung, without
disturbing the world outside of the county
in which that town is Situated, and even after
the whole State of Virginia, and the Army
and Navy of the United States had been call
ed to the rescue, and the seventeen insur-
gents taken by the combined State and Fed
eral forces, if they had listened to the teach
ings of common sense, and contented them
selves with guarding securely the prisoners
until they could be put through the forms of
law, and disposed Of according to its man
dates as criminal cases are usually conduct
ed and disposed of, if this had been done,
the honor and institutions of Virginia would
both be as much respected and as safe as they
are to day, and probably good deal more so.
John Brown will die, at least if a good Jail,
a stout chain, and a thousand brane men can
keep him in Virginia twenty four hours long
er, as we should think they might; he will
die, and we have no doubt, with fortitude,
seldom witnessed. He committed great
crime, and will expiate it. OF this, so far as
he is concerned, so far as Virginia is con-
cerned in the treatment of Brown, prison
er, wounded, sick, without friends, council
or money, and in strange land, the world
will have its opinion, and that opinion will in
fuence the future. John Browns crime,
John Brown answers with his life; Virginia's
treatment of John Brown, his mockery of
trial, the insults heaped upon a defenceless,
helpless, fallen foe, if you please, Virginia
will hav, to answer for before the country
and the world. Especially will she have to
answer for the folly of exposing the weakness
of her system Of slavery, the idle and ground
less fears it engenders, the mine OF gnnpow-
der which it is, and for the foul SANDERS
which she AID those ike her have heaped
upon majority of the people Of the Free
States. 1t only wants the additional folly of
Il political endorsement Of her conduct in this
business by a political party who are in want
of capital about this time, to make the ''irre-
pressble conflict as fixed a fact as ever
lured up in this world of ours.