Those
who are now straining every nerve to make party capital out
of Old Brown, are careful not to look back so far as to see
how
and why he became a monomaniac. They look away from the fact
that his attempt to get up an insurrection in Virginia is a
legitimate
consequence of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and, but for the passage
of that measure, would never have happened. President Pierce
and Judge Douglas are thus the real authors of the late insurrection
. . . .
John
Brown is a natural production, born on the soil of Kansas, out
of the germinating heats the great contest on the soil of that
Territory engendered. Before the day of Kansas outrages and
oppression, no such person as Ossawatomie Brown existed. No
such person could have existed. He was born of rapine, and cruelty,
and murder. Revenge rocked his cradle, disciplined his arm,
and nerved
his soul. We do not mean to say that revenge alone was the motive
power that actuated him. His moral nature was roused, and its
instincts and logic backed his determination with a profound
power. But Kansas deeds, Kansas experiences, Kansas discipline,
created
John Brown as entirely and completely as the French Revolution
created Napoleon Bonaparte. He is as much the fruit of Kansas
as
Washington was the fruit of our own Revolution.
Let
those, then, who have reproaches to heap upon the authors of
the Harper's Ferry bloody tumult and general Southern fright
go<
back to the true cause of it all. Let them not blame blind and
in evitable instruments in the work nor falsely malign those
who are in
no wise implicated, directly or indirectly; but let them patiently
investigate the true source whence this demonstration arose,
and<
then bestow their curses and their anathemas accordingly. It
is childish and absurd for Governor Wise to seize and sit astride
the
wounded, panting body of Old Brown, and think he has got the
villain who set this mischief on foot. By no means. The head
conspirators against the peace of Virginia are ex President
Franklin Pierce and Senator Douglas. They are the parties he
should apprehend, confine, and try, for causing this insurrection.
Next to them, he should seize upon Senators Mason and Hunter
of Virginia, as accessories. Let him follow up by apprehending
every supporter of the Nebraska bill, and when he shall have
brought them all to condign punishment, he will have discharged
his duty, but not till then ....