The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1859-12-22

John Bsle.vn.

| q aiEEg 't AVN.
John Brown was exec1tedA .., :.
accordance with his sentences.
its aspect, his was one of the most re..
BILE State trials on record, and must IA.
more than an ephemcral interest It was
remarkable in the character Of the accused
Brown was no wretch for whom the gallows
had natural yearning. He was well a ac.
credited member ofan Orthodox church, and
maintained every ordinary relation Of life as
became christian man. On one subject
alone he seemed insane, (for his wife as well
as he INSISTED that he was not insane--that
his method was not the method of madness)
II believed in hi immortal soul that slavehol
ding was sin, and all shareholders outlaws
Brave as julius Caesar, he threw himself into
the Kansas struggle with purpose and zeal
that brings back the memory ofCromwclrs
old Ironsides. He held his life not at a pins
fee, but everywhere braved danger and death
in his efforts to run slaves into free States
and resist the hordes from Missouri. We'll
had it been had his aggressive career ended
with that crusade. But like the animal
which having once tasted bloc l, is never
satiated, his hunger was unappeased, and he
laid his reasonable scheme against the peace,
the property and the government ola sover-
eign State. Atrocious as his act must be re.
regarded by the impartial eye of history,
there was in the method of it, and in the
bearing of its hero much that commands our
admiration. sa 'a 7 @9 H.R
He is of no ordinary mettle who will take
his life in his hand, enter foreign State with
but few associates, depending upon the aid
an ignorant undisciplined, servile race to
accomplish his purpose, seize the local means
of defense, and set in motion a revolutionary
government, which if unsuccessful must con-
sign every conspirator to the gibbct, and all
this, not for personal aggrandizemcnt, but
ITO give freedom to the captive.
There is so much of the very sublime Of
heroism in this self-consecration, that we al
most forget the crime of the treason and the
horrible results, too horrible 70 contemplate
which must have followed temporary sue
cess of the scheme, in our admiration of its
daring.
Then his conduct from the moment his
plot was frustrated, and al! his machinery
began to play upon his own head with such
terrible recoil, down to the fatal drop which
closed his ear thly career, has been in admira-
BILE keeping with his original firmncss and
bravery. No wild savage who could count
in his cabin hundred scalps of butchered
men, women and children, ever marched to
the fires which aiust revenge had kindled.
with tread more firm, or a cheek less blan
ched. than Brown has preserved in all that
solemn funeral march from his arrest to his
execution. Not murmur has escaped him,
not an unmanly appeal for his life, no apollo
gy for his great crime, no bending of his
knees to power to court one smile of its favor.
He has looked upon the gibbet as the path
to glory, and his death as the beginning Of
the Apotheosis. asrG saa ...# =.
All the running over the country to pro
cure evidence Of his insanity, was tn.
oekindrcd affection, which strange
ly forgot his needof straight. jacket, un-
til he got into straitsindeed But old John
Brown asked no favor, and his wife, devo-
tel to him almost Beyond the extravasance
of poetic fancies. "counted it all ioy" that
he was to die "Liberty's last great mar
tyr"
"Son ofSt Louis, rise to Heaven" was
not more sincerely uttered to Louis XVI, by
the good priest who attended him, as the axe
was uplifted over his royal head, as VIC be-
lieve, were that devoted wife to that doomed
She is of a heroic mould. Pos
sibly, and we hope it is so, that at the last
the woman overcame the heroine, and she
would have given a thousand lives if she
them to recall the tragic past
God help her.- Bgfal, Commercial.