The Leavenworth weekly times., 1878-02-21
TEE JOHN BROWN STATUE.

TIE JOHN BROWN STATUE.
Some timely remarks BY Wendell Phil
lips concerning the proposed statue to John
Brown have invited renewed and general
attention TO Senator Ingalls, splendid ora
ton at Osawatomie last summer. We doubt
if the people OF Kansas, quick as they are
to see and measure good things, yet COM
prehenli what an admirable effort that really
was. John Brown has beea vi itten and talked
about as much as any other one man in
our history but to Senator Ingalls, belongs
we think, the honor of having fashioned fors
him his true place in our galaxy Of great
men.
In his analysis OF his hero's life and work
Mr. Ingalls,, unlike most euiogis:s, begins
back of the mere physic al birth of the man
and shows Us the idee which produced and
guided and made him what he was. John
Brown, the individual, is really and prop
erly suboriinated to John Brown TIE moral
force in our politics. He takes the two
ideas OF jamestown and Plymouth, and
tracing them along side by side, shows how
in the very nature of things such a figure
as John Brown, representing what the an
clients would have called destiny, was sure
20 come, sooner or later, bringing with it
''the crack OF doom" for human slavery in
this country. 1t is not what John Brown
did, as what he ,ns, that is his crown and
glory; and this idea Senator Ingalls, i'm
presses with skill and power, and an elo-
quence born of close sympathy with what
was right and Just in the great conflict
which eliminated in "that mortal dnel' Ito
quote his own graphic words) "whOse
bloody deluge submerged half the con inent
beneath its crimson inundation."
The old hero of Harper's Ferry was a
Puritan, his ancestry running back to the
very cabin Of the Mayfower. Blood will
tell, and he could not well have helped
being what he was. an any age or coun-
ry," Ingalls, we'll says. "he would have
been reformer in politics and a Puritan
in religion" Those who attempt to gauge
his character or define his conduct by
ascribing his hatred Of slavery to the per
sonal wrongs he suffered, or even TO his hu.
manitarian interest in the negroes as op
pressed persons, seriously niistake the man
He Is too large for such an everyday meas
ure; and it j. something TO be t"ankful
for that, at least, his career has been lifted
to its proper plane in history, by man
who knew and believed in him and who is
signally capable of presenting great ami
important truth in manner 20 r ch, SO
strising and so graceful.
Take John Browns ab.trae; eets, from
the time Of his coming to Kansas, and be
seems but poor, visionary, unbalanced
man, bent on mischief and careless Of the
means employed. That is how he looks on
the surface. But take, on the other hand,
an interpretive view Of him, and zee how
his deeds, like stars in their spheres, shine
out. Go back to the cabin of the May.
flower, whence he came, and interpret his
life by the light shed upon it through the
colonial strifes and trials whose force and
meaning he inherited with his irst breath,
and left as legacy to his country and the
world on the scaffold at Charlestown. In
the maddes. Of his schemes, you will see
method; at the bottom Of his cruelest pur-
poses, you will not fail to ind heart as
tender as a child's. The world has long
ago conceded his bravery bnt he was more
than that; he was conscientious. ''ie was
bold because he had 10 doubts" Himself
he counted nothing, except as an instru-
ment In Gods hands; and he died, We all
know, like one going to feast. Socrates
had courage, Ingalls, reminds us, 'but not
faith" John Brown had both.
How this stern old puritan's crazy no
tions" inally became part and parcel OF the
organic law OF the nation, Mr.. Ingalls, tells
in felicitous and an impressive way, He
points out, too, by direct logical inference,
the danger Of forgetting what all this cost,
and shows that both promptness Of safety
and obligations of honor lie in the line OF e
strict and and steadfast adherence TO the
'naked TRUTH" for which Brown lived and
died The standing peril OF our republic is
not open assault, either from within or
from without, but secret and insidious cor-
ruption of public opinion. Our very
strength is in one sense our greatest weak
ness, and We cannot be too frequently re-
minded that liberty, however guarded in
form, can only be preserved in spirit by
close and ceaseless vigilance.
But what We ann mainly to do is to d.
rect notice to the undeniably strong and
significant way in which Senator Ingalls,
has redeemed John Browns name and fame
from the jaws of ruin and destruction,
and set his work like a light on a
hill, to shine always in our history, along
side O! the work that Lincoln did after him,
and that Grant finished with the sword.
John Browns right to statue is vindicat-
ed by this Osawatomie oration-an Grafton
that is worthy to rank, in thought and in
manner, with the best Of American eulogies
And John Brown belongs to Kansas. 1t is
our right, as it is our duty, TO put his hero
ic form in commemorative bronze or mar
bic, and give it place in the national gal
lery of statuary at Washington. Hated as
he was in his life, maligned as he was at
his death, the course Of time-how short a
time!- has amply justified him, and as In |
gals fitly remarks, the worst enemies of the |
old martyr can now "ill afford to remember
that Virginia hung, as traitor, the man
whose cause " nation espoused three years
erwards, and whose standard she seized
from the gallows at Charlestown, and bore
in triumph to APpomattox Court House."
Our BONDEss sSOEBTEDNESs.
EDITOR TINES: