The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-29
A HALF FORGOTTEN EPISODE.

A HALF FORGOTTEN EPISODE.
 Events of half century ago are looked on as almost ancient history in this push ing hurrying age. An episode or ffty-two years ago, which shook the Government, which was the elimination of the long controversy between North and South, which helped to bring on the Civil War and formed an era in American history is rarely mentioned or thought of. And yet the John Brown raid was as startling and as momentous in its con- seauences as was the battle of Lexing- ton.
 The efforts of that unbalanced fanatic to precipitate all the horrors of an ex- tended race war /on the South, and to in- volve the two sections of the Union In internecine war, marked the limit of abolition intolerance, but 1t is rare thing to hear it spoken of or to see it | mentioned in the newspapers, so com pletely has it been obliterated by the many and stirring events in our history which succeeded it.
 All the events and consequences con nected with that raid are brought freshly to the mind and to the public attention by the discovery made a few days ago by the Librarian of the State Library or Virginia of a bundle of letters addressed to John Brown while he was confined at Harper's Ferry after his unsuccessful l raid, The existence of these letters had been forgotten. They were discovered quite by accident among a lot of other papers in the archives of the State Li- | brary. They number about one hundred and are mainly from men and women In the North and West who were either aid | CTS and abettors or who sympathized with Brown in his attempt to create an upris. | ing among the slaves.
 As might be expected, these letters, while varying very much in form and tone, all breathe practically the same | spirit of encouragement and condolence to Brown and of hatred and defiance to the South. Many of them are from wo- men and some of them from men promi The Advertiser has no room to publish them, but contents itself with reproduc- ing the following extract from 6 poster
 which was scattered throughout the
 North and a copy sent to Brown in prison:
 Treason! All true Christians who be- lIeve in immortality through Jesus Christ alone are requested to pray for Captain | John Brown, who is under the sentence of death. and is to be hung next month for righteousness sake and for dealing justly with his fellow-men, his country, and his God
 Now that slavery is dead. and when most of those who were actors in the
 is hard to imagine the tremendous ex- citement as well as apprehension which
 overspread and permeated the South
 when the news was flashed over the wires
 that an armed force, having for its ob-
 ject the indictment of the slaves to re-
 belIion, had landed on the soil of Vir-
 glnia. There were many who firmly be-
 lieved that 1t was the beginning of a
 general uprising throughout the slave
 States. The arrival of a hostile fleet and
 army at New York or Washington would
 not have created half the excitement, be-
 cause that would have been looked on
 as to some extent local affair which
 could be confined to a small space and
 against which the rest of the country
 could arm and prepare itself. It might
 have meant war, but an open enemy could be combatted and driven back.
 To tamper with the loyalty of the
 Southern slaves was like going into a powder magazine with lighted match.
 from which one spark might fall. With
 all their apparent security and all their
 easy and royal way of living 1t is not to
 be denied that there was at all times and
 in all portions of the South a feeling of
 subdued apprehension of what was possi-
 ble. Certain implacable fanatics in the North were openly or covertly in favor of
 abolishing slavery by any means in their power, and the people of the South knew
 that there were abolition emissaries ire. quently in tho South, and that attempts , would be made to incite the slaves to re- bellion. This feeling was not discussed
 or made public. but 1t existed all the