The eight men engaged in the remarkable enterprise on the Pottawattomie,led by their indomitable Captain, mounted their stolen horses and boldlyrode to the camp of the military company commanded by John Brown, Jr.
The father planned to make his stand behind these guns if pursued byformidable foes.
Brown reached the camp of the Rifles near Ottawa Jones\' farm atmidnight. The fires still burned brightly. To his surprise he found thatthe news of the murders had traveled faster than the stolen horses.
The camp was demoralized.
John Brown, Jr., had been forced to resign as Captain and H. H. Williamshad been elected in his stead.
The reception which the County was giving his inspired deed stunned theleader. He had expected a reign of terror. But the terror had seized hisown people. He was compelled to lie and deny his guilt except to hisown flesh and blood. Even before his sons he was arraigned with fiercecondemnation.
On the outer edge of the panic-stricken camp his sons, Jason and John,Jr., faced him with trembling and horror in their voices.
Jason had denounced the first hint of the plan when the surveyor\'sscheme was broached. John, Jr. had refused to move a step on theexpedition. The two sons confronted their father with determinedquestions. He shifted and evaded the issue.
Jason squared himself and demanded:
"Did you kill those men?""I did not," was the sharp answer.
The son held his shifting eye by the glare of the camp fire.
"Did you have _anything_ to do with the killing of those men?"To his own he would not lie longer. It wasn\'t necessary. His reply wasquick and unequivocal.
"I did not do it. But I approved it.""It was the work of a beast.""You cannot speak to me like that, sir!" the old man growled.
"And why not?""I am your father, sir!""That\'s why I tell you to your face that you have disgraced every childwho bears your name--now--and for all time. What right had you to putthis curse upon me? The devils in hell would blush to do what you havedone!"The father lifted his hand as if to ward a blow and bored his sonthrough with a steady stare.
"God is my judge--not you, sir!"John Brown, Jr., sided with his brother in the attack but with lessviolence. His feebler mind was already trembling on the verge ofcollapse.
"It cuts me to the quick," the old man finally answered, "that my ownpeople should not understand that I had to make an example of thesemen--"Jason finally shrieked into his ears:
"Who gave you the authority of Almighty God to sit in judgment upon yourfellow man, condemn him without trial and slay without mercy?"The father threw up both hands in a gesture of disgust and walked fromthe scene. He spent the night without sleep, wandering through the woodsand fields.
Three days later while Brown and his huntsmen were still hiding in thetimber, the people of his own settlement at Osawatomie held a publicmeeting which was attended by the entire male population. Theyunanimously adopted resolutions condemning in the bitterest terms thedeed.
When the old man heard of these resolutions he ground his teeth in rage.
He had thought to sweep the Territory with a Holy War in a Sacred Cause.
He expected the men who hated Slavery to applaud his Blood Offering tothe God of Freedom. Instead they had hastened to array themselves withhis foes.
Something had gone wrong in the execution of his divine vision. Hismind was stunned for the moment. But he was wrestling again with God inprayer, while the avengers were riding to demand an eye for an eye and atooth for a tooth.
When the true history of man is written it will be the record of mindnot the story of the physical acts which follow the mental process.
The dangers of society are psychological, not physical. The crucialmoments of human history are not found in the hours in which armiescharge. They are found in the still small voices that whisper in thesilence of the night to a lone watcher by the fireside. They are foundin the words of will that follow hours of silent thought behind lockeddoors or under the stars.
The story of man\'s progress, his relapses to barbarism, his victories,his failures, his years of savage cruelties, his eras of happiness andsorrow, must be written at last in terms of mental states.
John Brown\'s mind had conceived and executed the series of murders thatshocked even a Western frontier. His mind enacted the tragedy daysbefore the actual happening.
And it was the state of mind created by the deed that upset all hiscalculations. The reaction was overwhelming. He was correct in his faiththat a blood feud once raised, all appeal to reason and common sense,all appeal to law, order, tradition, religion would be vain babble. Buthe had failed to gauge the moral sense of his own party. They had notyet accepted the theory which he held with such passionate conviction.
Brown\'s moral code was summed up in one passage from the Bible which hequoted and brooded over daily: