Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-10-27
SENATOR MASON AND JOHN BROWN.

IHE following statement, the authenticity of
which is beyond question, shows that Capt.
Brown invaded Virginia at the very place from
which body of Nirginians had previously set
out to invade kansas.-ED. INDEPENDENTl
Soon after the repeal of the Missouri Com
promise by Congress- in 1854, Senator Mason
returned to his home in the Valley of tie She
nandoah, and in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry.
1t was thereupon Immediately reported in that
region that the Senator, who from his political
standing and acknowledged talents, is an oracle
among his Democratic tellow-citizens, advised
subscription for the purpose of sending a
company OF men to Kansas TO aid in extending
the peculiar institutions of the South into that
then unsettled country. The subscription be-
came subject of common conversation in the
neighborhood, and to question its propriety was
to be denounced by Democratic leaders as trail
torous to Southern institutions.
10 extend slavery and thus restore the bal
ance of slave states disturbed by the admission
of free California, was regarded as an easy but
important duty. Some time after, while these
efforts were still making, the Northern papers
gave information of organized action in New
England to send free and liberty loving men
into the same territory. The chivalry of Vir-
glnia looked upon this Yankee movement with
perfect contempt, believing that Northern men
would be driven by them like chaff before the
wind.
But the active and hardy sons of New Eng
land, though much later in their beginning had
taken their carpet-bags and their light baggage,
and were swarming like bees into the disputed
territory before Senator Mason's chivalry had
collected their MEANS bid adue to their friends,
and made ready for their departure. After
protracted delays, however, under the leader
ship of young Shervard, son of the Cashier of
the Farmers Bank of Winchester a worthy
gentleman, near neighbor and particular friend
Of Senator Mason, the Virginia company took
the cars of the Baltimore < Ohio Railroad at
Harper's Ferry, and were speedily upon the
batle-felds of Kansas, where the friends of
freedom were contending under the direction of
the egallant old Puritan who, by his more than Ro-
man heroism, will be known in history as old
Osawatomie. The young men from the banks
of the Shenandoah and the valley of Virginia
were not backward in the discharge of what
Senator Mason had made them believe their
duty, and after many conflicts and some severe
sufierings in the cause of slavery, they had sue
ceeded as they supposed in electing their favor
lite young Shervard Sheriff of the county in
which they had pitched their tents.
Shervard consequently soon called upon the
Democratic Governor Geary for his commission,
but TO his great surprise found the Governor
dissatisfied with the election returns, and un-
willing to comply with his request. The un-
pleasant consequences will be remembered-an
alteracton. an alleged insult, public meeting to
express Indignation, and the death of Shervard
at the hands Of Jones, a particular friend of
Governor Geary. When these young men
reached Harper's Ferry on their return with the
lifeess body of their friend and cherished lead
er, their opinions had been greatly changed as
to the courage and character of their New Eng
land fellow citizens Instead of chaff they re-
garded them as incarnate demons, and they
considered the Senator's plan of planting slave
ry in Kansas wholly impracticable. But who
can doubt that this Harper's Ferry expedition
in behalf of slavery was the exciting cause of
the bloody scenes which have since been enac-
ted in that locality, giving it terrible historic
significance? John Brown and his associates
felt doubtless that they were only returning the
visit of Senator Mason's company while ''carry-
ing the war into Africa" Nor is it in the least
surprising that the Virginian Senator should be
anxious to investigate this Kansas Harper's
Ferry affair." He probably feels that he has a
peculiar and personal responsibility in the busi-
ness. He had hoped to connect leading Re-
publican statesmen with the enterprise of the
invaders. But he who "sowed the wind has
reaped the whrlwind." He has only shown
the pitiable weakness and ineffciency of social
system resting upon the great injustice of cattle
slavery, the bloody and Unsuitable cruelty cre-
ated by the practice of slaveholding, and the
fact that John Brown purchased his pixies and
pistols of a Mr.. Hart and Colonel Colt, two
very distinguished Democrats of Connecticut.