New Orleans daily crescent., 1860-01-13
.rohn Brown. OF ossasvatounis.

Brown conducted himself. down to his execution,
with nerve, and sustained himself in unsielding
fanaticism. But. is courage so uncommon q Gift
with the American people, that for its sake all
crimes are forgotteng The Indian who tonia-
hawks the babe, and soalps the woman, and
fortunes the man. goes 10 the stake with the same
stocism. y ct who pities or adlnires the wretch
who owes his f0rttude to the apathy of his sense
and soul; who is strong in the midst Of punishment
because his nature il degraded to that low tone
that it is incapable Of feeling what is exquisite In
pain or pleasure
A New England lecturer has contended that the
American people have a strong tendency TO falks
gradually into the aboriginal type. The body, he
says becomes gannt, the brain shrinks, the face
contracts, the cheek bones become prominent and
the changes of mental character accord with the
gradual transformation Of the body. The theory
Is not generally true for the diet and habits of
civilized life counteract it. But il ever exception
ably true, in one case, it was in that Of Brown.
Two centuries have been at work upon the mental
and bodily organization of his family; and Judging
him by his acts, he had become an Indian chief
He made war like savage, not in open day, not i'm
manly encounters, but stealthily at midnight, by
surprises, sezing his victims unawares, and adding
mutilation to murder, and robbery to both So It
was in Kansas So at Harperis Ferry. Revenge
was his master passion, which nothing but blood
could sake and, though he clothed it in scripture
phrase and words of philanthropy in order 70 hide
its baseness from himself, his acts reveal its true
character.
The sarages whom the British king ii the day
" lhe ieNolHIloH, leL loose upon 0hf women ana
children with tomahaWk and 'scalping knife, were
heroes Of the John Brown school, as savage in
slaughter, as reckless in the hour Of death. They
saw their sons die. before their eyes, and rebuked
their womanly weakness if they heard the signs Of
grief or pain They sang their death songs at the
stake, and reyiled their torturers, and exutsd to
think they were soon to be Joined to the Great
Spirit. brown was d creature of this stamp and
the massacres Of Wyoming and OF Schenectady
We're not more cruel and barbarous than his deeds
| In Kansas and in Virginia. Their motive was bet
| ter for they revenged the wrongs Of their race,
and sought 20 recover the hunting grounds Of their
fathers, while the marauder Brown was a stranger
to the soil Of Virginia, and alien to the race N
/ whose name he ran the career of blood
There are minds that admire the savage Indian,
as there are those who are daz1led BY tie equally
savage marauder of this day. But the sentimental
simperers never saw the real Indian, or have had
4 any means of forming any idea Of him, except
through the medium Of romancss and poetry.
! The white borderer, who knows the truth and en-
counters the Indian in realty. reears the savage of
the wilderness he does the wild beast, and freas
i both class. of ssYsrmin with the same remorse-
less hate. So this man Brown. when the mist and
mirage through which he is to be seen, is dtssi-
i pated, will sink into the same proportion sayage
without higher purpose than revenge, without any
other heroism than apathy TO danger.