The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-07
r LSIFICATION or HISTORY.
THE GOLDEN ACE OF LIFE.
REV II III.
BY REV. r.. II. WHITAKER.


said was changed for his crimes,
kissed a negro baby as he was de-
Scending the steps of the Jail. on his
way to the gallows. That story is
not really believed by the Northern
people. but, in order to make old
John a saint and, by implication, his
hanging a judicial murder, the Abo-
litionsts-those of them, at least, who
seem determined that the truth, II 1t
be contrary to their prejudices, shall
not be told, are still maintaining that
the horse thief and murderer did, as
the last act of his life, kiss negro
baby
Nobody cares one way or the 9TH
err, about the matter--in fact, to the
ordinary citizen, who knows the his
tory of the mantle fearful crimes
he committed and the wholesale MUIR
dering of the whites of the South he
had planned, it is matter of the
supremest Indifference what he said
or did; he had forfeited his life, and
the law said he was unfit to live; yet,
unlike the ordinary criminal. convict
ed of crime, instead of exhibiting sor-
row for the murders committed and
the wholesale murders intended, he
manifested, in his last hours, the
spirit of a mailman, and left, as a
legacy to his friends, the recollection
that he died with a heart filled with
BITTERNESS. IllSledQ Oh lIldC IOTSlNlilS
spirit which the Saviour, the Apostles
the Martyrs and Saints of all ages
exhibited, in the dying hour toward
enemies, we are Informed that he died
as he had lived a hater of men.
The following extract from The
Life and Letters of John Brown,
edited by f. b. Sanborn, (see Vol. 8,
page 53S, Library of American Lit
erature), shows in what frame of
mind the murderer died:
Brown repeated what he had said
to the Methodists-that he did not
recognize as Christians any slavehold-
ers or defenders of slavery. lay or
clerical; adding that he would as
soon be attended to the scaffold by
blacklegs or robbers of tile worst
kind as by slaveholding ministers;
if he had his choice he would rather
be followed to his execution by bare
footed. bare-legged, ragged slave
children and their old grey-headed
slave mother, than by such clergy
men. | should feel much prouder of
such an escort, and l wish l could
have it, From this saying of his,
several times repeated, no doubt
arose the legend that. on his way to
the gallowS, he took up a slave child,
kissed it, and gave it back to its
mothers arms" says the historian.
This extract sets forth two things:
In the first place, that the murderer
died mad--with a heart full of hatred
in the second place, that, according
to his historian. F. B. Sanborn, whom
we must suppose, would tell the truth,
in his Life and Letters of John
Brown" there was no kissing; but a
legend, founded upon the remark
about being attended to his execution
by slave children is all there was of
it.
Yet, per contra. founded, 1 suppose,
on that legend which has no founda-
ton in fact there is in the Metropoli-
tan Art Museum, in New York a large
painting by Thomas Hovenden, copy
righted by Helen Hovenden repra-
senting John Brown on his way to
the gallows. He is represented as de-
scending the prison steps guarded by
the officers of the law and the sol
diery; his arms are pinioned and the
rope is about his neck. He is on the
lowest step, and negro woman,
standing on the ground, is holding a
babe uD for him to kiss it. The
babe has its arms around old Johns
neck, and everybody seems to be Civ
ing serious and respectful attention
to the performance.
Such thing never occurred, but
the legend served it's purpose to in
flame the Abolition mind to make q
saint of old John; and, like 'Uncle
IOut OdDlH, TO SO1lQ1Iy PUBIC SEN
timent in the North, in its hostility
against slavery and the slave owner
Now, / am astOnished to see thai
1.-THE Historians History of the World"
a mammoth publication of twenty-five
volumes, which is to be read by al
succeeding generations, proposes to |
insert in the twenty-third volume OF
that work full-page plate of that
Hovenden picture. and by so doing
TO nprnpfI1ta a f1lSQhnnH. and what l
astonshes me most of all is, that 1.-The
Outlook Company of New York
should lend itself to the ignoble task
of giving to posterity a legend tina
had no foundation, except in the braiI |
of some crank whose hatred to the
South overbalanced his sense of RICH
and truth.
| repeat, it is q matter of no i'm
portance whether old John did or die |
not kiss the babe; but, it is a mat.
ter of serious import that history
should be truthful, in every detail. A |
liar, on small, is a pest to any com |
munity; but. a falsifier of history is |
close kin to that evil spirit that LED |
the world astray.
In the years to come some Northern |
child will ask the question: "Grandpa |
did that old John Brown, a picture |
of whose execution l see in the His |
torian's History of the World, really |
KISS THAT negro DdDy =!
The answer will be: 81 guess not |
but somebody started the legend, an6
our people, just at that time, were
ia the humor to believe anything |
and man, for the sake of notoriety.
painted picture which looked Sc
real the people concluded it was true
and 1T gave them so much pleasure
that the better informed, who coul6
have corrected the story, concluded
to let 1t go into history as il was. No
there was no kissing at the hang.
ing
Then the child will be apt to say
Don't you reckon it was a sin to
put a falsehood into history?'
me answer to which will, likely
be: We need not discuss that now;
the men who did it arc all dead"
so, after awhle-when the North
ern matters and the Southern hated
are all dead, and the bitterness which
was inspired by AboIitionism, and the
falsltles OF Uncle Toms Cabin have
ceased to influence the minds and
hearts OF men and women, the truth
VIII De written, and many changes
VIII be made N n /