Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1860-02-03

out on her territory.
Washington could have done no more than
this, crown him with tho halo poetry as
you will
i. Virginia, sovereign State, has maintain
ed her authority. John Brown is dead
Proven guilty Of treason-condemned Tor
atrocious murders-he has atoned for these
CRIMES On the acafold. It is impossible for
man to stand upon the verge OF eternity,
into which he must be launched by violent
death, without filing every good heart with
grief and compassion. But when he Is brave
when his path OF bleed has been lighted
by the lurid torch OF fanatirism or insanity
such minds as yours, annaat, earnest,
and poetical, may be expected % cEoshe, his
crimes in white garments. and, forgetting
the murderer in the brave man, sing paans
to the martyr of vivid imagination only.
I am of a sex and of nature to whom
these feelings are kindred. | cannot think
of old John Brown upon the scafold with
out shudder through all my being. | can
not think of man made in the image OF his
God suffering an ignominious death without
thrills of pain But [ find it impossible to
fix my mind on the scafold Of this old man.
It goes back to his victims at Harper's Fer
ry-to the women made widows by the out
break of single morning-to the orphans,
who had never wronged him, SO cruelty be-
reaved by bis crime. | see the two sons
who blindly followed his lead fall martyrs
to his rebellous spirit.
I look beyond all this, far away into the
beautiful South. ard instead Of an old man
on the gallows, I see thousands Of my own
conntrywomen, gentle, good and lovely,
given up prey to wild insurrection-l see
those murderous pixies, Manufactured with
such cruel forethought, piercing their boson1s
Il hear the cries of children calling for the
mothers who will never answer them again
Il see proud, strong men struggling against
the brute strength Of their own household
servants. This picture strikes my compass
sion dumb, and can only cover my face
and pray God to have mercy on the old man.
soul!
John Brown was tried, condemned, and
executed as trator-a guard Of American
citizens stood around the scafola, sad at
heart, but steady in their devotion to the
laws The Legislature of 6 great Common
wealth sat, deliberately, after his Sentence,
and pronounced it just The Federal Union
in which thirty millions Of souls throb, stood
by in solemn silence. while the treason Of
this man was expiated. =
Out Of al these. thirty millions of intelli-
gent, educated men; who make their own
laws and abide by. them, not one hundred
thousand can be found 70 Join with you in
condemning tie execution Of John Brown,
while every good heart among them must
|sympathise in the pity for his fate, which
mingles SO eloquently with your denuncia-
tions. -
Some there may he,-nay, certainly are,
who would add bitterness to your words,
and wing them like poisoned arrows far and
wide, if they had the power But these are
the very men and women who instigated his
crime. who urged him on to revolt, and
shrunk away into safe places when the gloom
of his deeds settled around him-men and
women who nakemoney by incendiary books
sermons and lectures, and while they inclte
crimes which coin gold For themselves, have
no courage to meet the danger when it arises.
But thousands and tens of thousands share
your pity for the old man-guilty and mad
as he was, while they put your denuncla-
lions aside with calm forbeagancc, feeling
how little knowledge you possess on sub
ject which agitates you so deeply.
But if the great mass Of my countrymen
join in your pity for the unhappy man, it is
not because they condemn his execution or
sympathise with his revolt. Probably TWEEN
ty-nine millions and nine hundred thousands
of our people look upon this execution: as.
full and solemn atonement: Cor crimes in
which they have no sympathy. Our coun-
try is now divided into three political par
ties, none Of which will endorse this rebel
lion or condemn tie course justice has taken.
When you call upon the Federal Union to
interpose its authority against the laws Of
Virginia, there is not a schooboy through
out the land-for to all such our Constitu-
ton is q text book who would not smile at
your idea that the General Government has
any right to interfere with the legal acts of
an Independent. Commonwealth, or that the
majority of single State would Sc Interfere,
if it had the power.
Your picture of John Browns trial is
painful one It must be hard heart which
does not swell with compassion as it presents
itself Upon wretched pallet, with six
half gaping wounds-scarcely conscious of
surrounding sounds bathing his mattrass
with blood, and with the ghostly presence of
his two dead sons forever before him. >
Thus you place the unhappy man before the
world, forgetting that those CHASTITY wounds
are but the evidence of a more CHASTITY crime;
the fearful witnesses by which his guilt was
It is, indeed, terrible picture you have
drawn; but the streets of Harper's Ferry had
one more terrible still. There, innocent
men, all unconscious of danger, were shot
down like wild animals There widows,
newly bereayed, knelt moaning over their
dead. and orphan children cried aloud for
the parents that John Brown had SO ruth
lessly murdered. This picture you have for
gotten to place side by side with the other;
but we who love our countrymen have SYM
pathy for the innocent as well as pity for the
guilty.
You complain that his trial was hurried,
that the jury sat only forty minutes and that
all the proceedings were indecorously urged
hu5 were they so swift as tie rife
balls that shot down unarmed men in the
streets at Harpcr's Ferry? Were they so
ruthless as. John Browns midnight descent
upon sleeping village in Kansas, where