The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1875-01-13

The following we clip from the re-
port, by the Chicago Inter Ocean,
of the lecture Of FRED. DOUGLASS, in
Farwell Hall in that city, on the hero
of Harper's Ferry, John Brown:
The famous battle of Black Jack
was rehearsed, and the wondrous skill
of the old warrior Of the Kansas plain
was shown to be one of the leading
elements in his character. With only
eighteen men he shook the whole So
cial pillars of Virginis; with them he
captured town of 5000 inhabitants;
with them he repulsed twelve com
them call Justify for Federal bayonets
to protect them: [Applause.] There
injustice of this call. Now, when the
government sends a few regiments
white men and negroes there against
| the White I.eaeuers and Ku Klux, a
howl of indignation went from one
end of the country to the other.
! Loud and prolonged applause ]
| When John Brown went down to
. Virginia the peoples first conclusion
was that he went there for plunder
/ Others we're of opinion that he went
down there to be made the President,
and this was borne out when in his
satchel they found constitution
which was agreed to for those who
were to ioin him in. the mountains.
! The shareholders of that section where
! he operared and few of his personal
friends knew John Brown, and his
plans were fully explained. General
Lee, Governor Wise, r. b. Mason,
J Vallandigham, and others who were
i beside the old man when he lay
wounded down in Virginia, tried to
wiring from the hero that the late
Joshua r. Giddings, the lamented
Gerrit Smith. and Howe, the aboli-
! ZIONIST. we're implicated in the raid.
But he stood there, more than ever a
hero. and claimed for himself all the
authorship of the raid. He boldly
stated he alone was the one upon
whom the thunderbolt should fall.
I He would stand there and take the
results. And the men who were
around him, while they called Brown
a criminal in the outward act, yet in
their hearts they called him hero.
! Old Virginia might have spared him.
1t was useless for them to attempt to
extort from him the confession that
would implicatc any one. He had
gone there, and he was willing and
ready to die on the head of it Colonel
Hoyt, who left Massachusetts, to save
his friend, might have saved his labor,
for the plea Of a Choate, Webster,
or Clay would at that hour have
been unavailing. He was doomed.
He had dared to trample under foot
one of Virginia's greatest, dearest
{ idols. She could have laid aside any
thing, but this was striking an evil
] whose fruits studded every hillside
. and valley in the old State. and that
they could not avert. The man b
greatest herOism was shown at that
hour of death. He laid down his life
for those who were below him in the
social scale. Then ii was not white
man for white man, or black man for
black man, but white man for black
man. black man for white man. APP
plause.1 The best days of John
Brown were his last. In this he re-
sembles the greatest His last hours
were like all those of all great men.
He was his grandest at his death
scene. He told the men who sur
rounded him on that occasion, that in
eighteen months after his death that
for which he fought would come be-
fore the people in way they were not
then prepared for, and each of them
would see it and participate in it. 1t
was a prophecy which came true to
the letter. Mason was arrested for
treason. Vallandigham was vacilla-
ting between North and South, sought
by none. rejected by both. The same
house where Governor Wise had lived,
eighteen months later was turned into
a school, with the daughter of John
Brown teaching colored children.
GApplausc1 He was plain man.
He was possessed of all the family
virtues. He was a bold man. 1t
might be said that the only reason to
be given for the existence of such
men as John Brown was that when
they we're needed they lived. When
ever John Brown saw there was
right, there beside it he saw thus
saith the Lord [Applause.l All
legislation on slavery was to such a
man as John Brown but as cobwebs
which had accumulated only to be
swept away by the hand of the one
who was to sweep the world. The
events which preceded the incidents
at Harper's Ferry were preparatory to
the great struggle of his life. When
John Brown was seen the last time
by the lecturer he met him in Penn
sylvania in a stone quarry. The am
munition and arms with which he
was to attack Harper's Ferry were
there. He told John Brown that he
could not go with him to the Ferry.
And he was glad he didn't. Laugh
ter The reason why John Brown
was not successful was not, as some
said, that the forces promised him
from the North failed to come; was
not that the cowardly negroes had de-
serted him; but that when he stopped
| sengers go. who were swept down on
around Harper's Ferry, to make him
a prisoner and a martyr. What was
| the cause of his failure. or was it
failure? If he went there to raise and
head an army, and thus free the slaves
of the South, then it was failure. If
John Brown went down to Harpers 8
Ferry to make himself leader, then,
. he was a failure. But did John
Brown go there to save his life? That
was his prime object beside freeing
the slaves He went to that dread
conflict to lay down his life for the
black man. and if he did not perform
the act that closed the war. he was
the first to precipitate the struggle
that ended in emancipation. He was
before Fremont in his proclamation,
and before Abraham Lincoln. Let
none call his the lost cause" but
rather that of the ones who brought
about his death. [Applause1.
diCpa{ch from, Offovo the