Digital
History>eXplorations>John
Brown: Hero or Terrorist?>The
Execution>John Brown to Prosecutor Hunter
John
Brown to Prosecutor Andrew Hunter, November 22, 1859
Source:
Report of the Select Committee of the Senate Appointed to
Inquire into the Late Invasion and Seizure of the Public Property
at Harper's Ferry. Report Com. No. 278, 36th Congress, 1st
Session, "Testimony" (Washington, D.C., 1860), pp. 67
68.
I
have just had my attention called to a seeming confliction between
the statement I at first made to Governor Wise and that which
I made at the time I received my sentence, regarding my intentions
respecting the slaves we took about the Ferry. There need be
no such confliction, and a few words of explanation will, I
think, be quite sufficient. I had given Governor Wise a full
and particular account of that, and when called in court to
say whether I had anything further to urge, I was taken wholly
by surprise, as I did not expect my sentence before the others.
In the hurry of the moment, I forgot much that I had before
intended to say, and did not consider the full bearing of what
1 then said. I intended to convey this idea, that it was my
object to place the slaves in a condition to defend their liberties,
if they would, without any bloodshed, but not that I intended
to run them out o f the slave States. I was not aware of any
such apparent confliction until my attention was called to it,
and I do not suppose that a man in my then circumstances should
be superhuman in respect to the exact purport of every word
he might utter. What I said to Governor Wise was spoken with
all the deliberation I was master of, and was intended for truth;
and what I said in court was equally intended for truth, but
required a more full explanation than I then gave. Please make
such use of this as you think calculated to correct any wrong
impressions I may have given.
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