found a warm-hearted and self-sacrificing friend. While Brown lay in jail awaiting his trial, she wrote to Governor Wise. She expressed her "regret" and "surprise" at "the step that the old veteran has taken," but added that he needed a mother or sister to dress his wounds and speak soothingly to him, and asked to be allowed "to perform that mission of humanity." The governor replied in courteous and courtly style, though perhaps a trifle curt. He avowed his want of sympathy with her "sympathy" for "one who whetted knives of butchery for our mothers, sisters, daughters, and babes," and his surprise at her "surprise," saying that "his attempt was a natural consequence of your sympathy." He however gave his permission, on the ground that he was "bound to protect "her, and accord to her the privileges and immunities of a citizen of Massachusetts coming into Virginia. She also wrote to Brown, disclaiming sympathy with his "method" of advancing the "cause of freedom," but avowing the greatest admiration for him personally and a strong desire to minister to his comfort. "In brief," she wrote, "I love you and bless you." In his reply he expressed his gratitude for her sympathy and kind offers, but intimated that he did not need anything more than was afforded by Captain Avis, his jailer, "a most humane man," who, "with his family, has rendered every possible attention I have desired, or that could be of the least advantage." This correspondence evoked no little interest and feeling. Among the evidences of it was a letter written to Mrs. Child by the wife of Senator Mason, in which were exhibited the usual slaveholding assumption, arrogance, and bitterness. Mrs. Child replied to her, as she had already to Governor Wise, in fitting terms and just as such a woman, on such a theme and under such circumstances, would necessarily respond. Many friends of the slave as well as personal friends visited the prisoner to comfort and support. Among them was Judge Russell, afterwards collector of the port of Boston, at whose house he had been concealed, while fearing arrest on a requisition from the governor of Missouri. In his conversation with him he expressed in the strongest language his confi dence in the Divine disposal of events and of himself; saying that he fully recognized God's sovereignty in the affair, even in the "mistakes" and "errors" which had been committed. On the day before the execution, Mrs. Brown, accompanied by Hector Tyndale and J. Miller McKim, visited her husband, having an order from the governor who, considering the circumstances, deported himself very courteously and chival rously towards John Brown and his friends-for the delivery of his body, and a letter also, expressing his "sympathy with her affliction," and containing the assurance that his "authority and personal influence" should be exerted to enable her to secure "the bones of her sons and her husband" for "decent and tender interment among their kindred." Their meeting was deeply affecting. "For some minutes," it is said, “they stood speechless, with a silence more eloquent than any utterance could have been." Speaking tenderly of their children, both living and dead, he commissioned her to tell the survivors that their father died without a single regret for the course he had pursued," and that he was satisfied that he was "right in the eyes of God and all just men." The only thing that seemed to trouble him was his anxiety for those he was leav ing destitute. For those soon to be widowed and orphaned he did plead, though his requests were coupled with the characteristic remark: "I well understand that they are not the only poor in the land." For himself he had no tears; but for the loved ones he was leaving behind his heart yearned with a solicitude he could not and probably did not care to repress. 66 The 2d of December, appointed for the execution, having arrived, the final act in this drama of blood was performed, amid no little of "the pomp and circumstance of war," and John Brown's name was added to the list of martyrs, and the cause of impartial freedom he had served so nobly received the baptism of his blood. He died courageously and well, and his death was a fitting close of his life, lending glory to the gallows, and receiving naught of disgrace therefrom. Immediately after the execution his body was delivered to General Tyndale and J. Miller McKim, who, with Mrs. Brown, started immediately for the North. At New York Wendell Phillips joined the little cortege, and they proceeded rapidly towards North Elba, where the widowed mother, returning from her sad pilgrimage, met her children with "a burst of love and anguish." That was, however, soon succeeded by a holy and pensive joy," and they seemed reconciled even to this stern trial of their faith and love. They buried him on the 8th, with services as simple and unostentatious as was the character and life of the martyr himself, as was, too, the community in which he had lived and for which he had labored. Wendell Phillips could not but speak eloquently, and with such pathetic and pointed utterances as the event would naturally suggest to one so thoroughly in sympathy with the objects, if not the methods, of the dead. But, like all the opponents of slavery at that time, he evidently had little conception of the nature of the conflict itself, or of the forces that would be found needful to root up and destroy American slavery. Though it was but one brief year before South Carolina passed her ordinance of secession, raised the banners of revolt, and led the movement which ushered in the civil war, he said: "I do not believe slavery will go down in blood." The execution became at once the signal of discussions at home and abroad. Abroad, the utterances were generally of commendation and eulogy. John Brown, if not the canonized saint, was the proclaimed hero of the hour, while America was held guilty of his murder. "Slaughtered," wrote Victor Hugo," by the American republic, the crime assumes the proportions of the nation which commits it." This country, from press, pulpit, and platform, resounded with conflicting discussions. Large meetings were held. Few approved. The great mass condemned, some, to show their continued fealty to the South, affirming, as was done in some Northern assemblages, that slavery was "wise, just, and beneficent," and stigmatizing antislavery men as "drunken mutineers"; and others, to express their confidence in the man, and in the integrity of his purpose, admiration for his heroism, sympathy for the object he had at heart, but repudiation of his methods, saying with Whittier : "Perish with him the folly But whatever diversities in judgment, or errors of estimate there may have been, Mr. Phillips did not err when, standing by the open grave of John Brown, he said that his words were stronger than his arms, and that, while the echoes of his rifles had died away among the hills of Virginia, his words were guarded by a million hearts. When, a few months later, the uprising nation sent forth its loyal sons to battle, his brave, humane, and generous utterances were kept in fresh remembrance. The "John Brown Song," extemporized in Boston harbor, and sung by the "Massachusetts Twelfth," marching up State Street, down Broadway, and in its encampment in Pleasant Valley on the banks of the Potomac, struck responsive chords that vibrated through the land. Regiment after regiment, army after army, caught up the air, and in the camp, on the march, and on the battle-field, brave men associated the body "mouldering in the ground" and the soul still "marching on" of the heroic old man with the sacred idea for which he died and for which they were fighting. CHAPTER XLVI. HUNTING FOR TREASON. Mason's resolution. - Trumbull's amendment. - Debate thereon. - Trumbull, Mason, Hale, Hunter, Davis, Wilson, and Clark. - Charges against the Republican party by Mason and Iverson. Colloquy between Wilson and Iverson. Strong speech of Mr. Wade. Report, in part, of committee. - Hyatt at the bar of the Senate. - Imprisonment. — Release. - Case of Sanborn. - His memorial. - Final report. — Douglas's resolution. His attack on the Republican party. - Fessenden's reply. — Damaging admissions. — Hunter's oration. Failure of Douglas's resolution. THREE days after the execution of John Brown the XXXVIth Congress assembled. A resolution was immediately offered by Mr. Mason for the appointment of a committee of investigation concerning the affair at Harper's Ferry. Upon taking up the resolution Mr. Trumbull offered an amendment instructing the same committee to inquire into "the facts attending the invasion, seizure, and robbery, in December, 1855, of the arsenal of the United States at Liberty, Missouri, by a mob of armed men." Mr. Mason expressed the conviction that the only purpose of the amendment was to embarrass his resolution. Mr. Hale replied in his best vein. Though his words bore the semblance of raillery and wit, they were trenchant and severely truthful. Alluding to the charges which had been made and reiterated against Republicans, he said he had no confession to make, no words to unsay. He favored the inquiry, and expressed the wish that it might be most thorough and searching. Mr. Hunter expressed surprise that any one should be disposed to embarrass the resolution by an amendment "not germane," or by partisan appeals. Jefferson Davis expressed the opinion that there was no necessary resemblance between the scenes enacted at Harper's Ferry and those in Missouri. Mr. Wilson avowed his purpose to vote for both the resolu |