Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1859-12-30

!, tie Editor Of The London Star.

the United States Of America, n majestic
form rises before the eye of Imagination
1t is Washington!
Look then, to what is taking place in
that country of Washington at this present
moment
In the Southern States of the Union
there are slaves, and this circumstance is
regarded with Indignation as the most mon
strous of inconsistencies, by the pure and
logical conscience Of the Northern States.
A white man, freeman, John Brown,
sought to deliver these negro slaves from
bondage. Assuredly if insurrection is ev-
er sacred duty, it must be so when it is
directed against Slavery. John Brown en-
deavored to commence tho work Of eman-
cipation by the liberation of slaves in Vir-
ginia. Pious, austere, animated with the
old Puritan spirit, inspired by the spirit of
the Gospel, he sounded to these men, these
oppressed brothers, the rallying cry of Free
dom. The slaves, enervated by servitude,
made no response TO the appeal. Slavery
aff1icts the soul with deafness. Brown,
though deserted, still fought at the head of
handful of heroic men; he struggled; he
was riddled with balls; his two young sons,
sacred martyrs, fell dead at his side, and he
himself was taken. This is what they call
the affair of Harper's Ferry.
John Brown has been tried, with four of
his comrades, Stephens Coppic, Green,
and Copeland.
What has been the characterof his trial
Let us sum it up in few words
John Brown, upon wretched pallet,
with six half gaping wounds, gun-shot
wound in his arm, another in his loins, and
two in his head, scarcely conscious of sur
rounding sounds, bathing his mattress in
blood, and with tue ghostly presence of his
two dead sons ever beside him his four fell
low sufferers wounded, dragging themselves
along by his side; Stephens bleeding from
four saber wounds; justice in hurry and
overlapping all obstacles; an attorney,
Hunter, who wishes to proceed hastily, and
a Judge, Parker, who suffers him to have
his own way; the hearing cut short, almost
every application for delay refused, forged
and mutlated documents produced, the
witnesses for the defense kidnapped, every
obstacle thrown in the way of the prisoners
counsel, two cannon loaded with canister
stationed in the Court, orders given to the
jaiers to shoot the prisoners if they sought
to escape, forty minutes of deliberation,
and three men sentenced to die. | declare
on my honor that all this took place not in
Turkey, but in America
Such things cannot be done with impu-
nifty in the face of civilized world. The
universal conscience of humanity is an ever
watchful eye. Let the judges of Charles
town, and Hunter, and Parker, and the
slaveholding jurors, and the whole popula-
tion of Virginia, ponder on it well they are
watchedl They are not alone in the world
Al this moment America attracts the
eyes of the whole of Europe.
John Brown, condemned TO die, was to
have been hanged on the I'd of December
this very day.
But news has just reachedus IA respite
has been granted to him. 1t is not until
the 10th that he is to die.
The interval is a brief one. Before it
has ended will cry for mercy have had
time to make itself heard2
No matter! 1t is our duty to speak out.
Perhaps second respite may be grant
ed. America is. a noble nation. The i'm
pulse of humanity springs quickly into life
among free people. We may yet hope
that Brown will be saved.
If it were otherwise, if Brown should
die on the scaffold on the 10th of Decem-
-, ,,,boE n to,,,bIo oolo
The executioner Of Brown, let us avow
it openly (for the day of Kings is past, and
the day of peoples dawns, and to the peo-
pie we are bound frankly to speak the
truth)-the executloner of Brown would be
neither the attorney Hunter, nor the Judge
Parker, nor the Governor Wise, nor the
State of Virginia; it would be, though we
can scarce think or speak of it without a
shudder, the whole American Republic.
The moro one loves, the more one ad-
mires, the more one venerates that Repub-
lic the more heartsick one feels at the con-
temptation of such catastrophe. A sin
gle State ought not to have the power to
dishonor all the rest, and in this case there
is an obvious justification for Federal in
tervention. Otherwise, by hestating to in
terfere when it might prevent crime, the
Union becomes participator in its guilt
No matter how intense may be the indig-
nation of the generous Northern States,
the Southern States force them to share
the opprobrum of this murder All of
us, no matter who we may be, who are
bound together as compatriots by the COM
mon tie of democratic creed, feel ourselves
in some measure compromised. If the
scaffold should be erected on tho 10th OF
December, the incoruptible voice of histo-
ry would thenceforward testify that the au-
gust Confederation of the New World had
added to all its ties of holy brotherhood
brotherhood of blood, and the fasces oi
that splendid Republic would be bound to-
gether by the running moose that hung from
the gibbet of Brown.
1t is bond that can only kill.
When we reflect on what Brown the lib.
orator, the champion of Christ, has striver
TO effect, and when we remember that he is
about to die, slaughtered by the American
Republic, the crime assumes an importance
coextensive with that of the nation which
would commit IL; and when we say to our.
selves that this nation is one of the glorie.
of the human race that like France, like
England, like Germany, she is one Of the
/ r.raaN os,anta af OSCILLATION. that eha so,,oa