The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-04-10
lfrom +. b. Sanborns History In the April At
lantlc.l
John brown ana John quincy
Adams.

| hoHhss
Brown believed IL possible TO carry on
the sort of warfare he should wage with
out necessarily interfering with the civil
government of Virginia or of the Union,
although the local functions of government
might be suspended through fear, or abso-
lutely superseded, for time, by his own
framework of provisional government. In
this forecast of possible struggle for
emancipation, he was not SO far as he
might have been from the expectations of
John Quincy Adams on the same subject.
in 1920. When the Missouri compromise
was under fierce debate in congress. MIR.
Adams (being then secretary of the state.
and Mr. Calhoun secretary of war to
President Monroe) made this entry in his
journal ~
February "a, 1921 had some CONVEX
satlon with Calhoun on the slave question
pending in congress. He said he did not
THINK 1t would produce dissolution of the
Union, but, If it should, the south would
De from necessity compelled to form an
alliance, offensive and defensive. with
Great Britain. l said that would
DC returning to the colonial state
lie said, Yes, pretty much, but it
would be forced upon Them |
pressed the conversation no further, but. if
the dissolution of the Union should result
from the slave question, it is as obvious as
anything that can be foreseen of futurty.
that it must shortly afterward be followed
by the universal emancipation of the slaves :;
the destructive progress of eman-
clpatlon, which, like all great religious and
nplitico1 rafn l.
means, though happy and glorious in its
END. Slavery is the great and foul stain
upon the North American Union, and il is
contemplation worthy of the most exalt.
cd soul, whether its total abolition is or is
not practicable if practicable, by what
means 1t may be effected. and, if choice
of means be within the scope of the object.
what means would accomplish it at the
smallest cost of human suffering. A dis
solution, at least temporary, of the Union
as now constituted would be certainly ne.
cessary, and the dissolution must be upon
point involving the question of slay cry.
and no other. The object is vast in its
compass, awful in its prospcc S, sublime
and beautiful in its ISSUE A life devoted
to It would be nobly spent or sacrificed"
Such life was that of John Brown. He
entered upon it when, as boy. "during
the war with England, seven years before
this colloquy of Adams with Calhoun, he
saw his little black playmate starved and
beaten, and with boyish ardor "swore
eternal war to slavery" He ended it on
the gallows in Virginia, and men said he
"died as fool dieth." But the method
that he devised for emancipation was that
which, within five years after his death. the
nation adopted and carried to q successful
issue. 1t was the method of force, and it
proceeded gradually, as Brown had fore
seen that it must, from state to state, and
without overthrowing the general govern
ment. There was, however, what Adams
had predicted, temporary dissolution of
the union, followed by amendment and
repeal r." as Brown had desired, and
then by that which both Adams and
Brown had longed for, reorgania-
ton of the union son the fundamental
principle of emancipation. Thus again
In human history, as so many times before,
did the divine paradox reassert itself, and
the stone which the builders rejected be-
came the head of the corner. Beside the
Potomac, where the founder of our repub-
lie lived and died, crowned with honors, it
was decreed that the restorer of the repub-
lie should also die by the hangman's hand.
The work that WashingtouJeft unfinished,
Brown came to complete; and Lincoln
with his proclamations, Grant and Sher-
man with their armies, and Sumner with
his constitutional amendments, did little
more than follow in the path which Brown
had pointed out. "Of all the men who
were said to be my contemporaries, wrote
Concord poet, sit seemed to me that
John Brown was the only one who had not
died. | met him at every turn. He is
more alive than ever he was he is no long
er working in secret he works in public,
and IN the cearest light that shines on this
land"