Suddenly the old man left Springdale. He ordered his disciples tocontinue their drill until he should instruct them as to their nextmarch.
Two weeks later he was in Rochester, New York, with Frederick Douglas.
In a room in this negro\'s house Brown composed a remarkable document asa substitute for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ofthe United States.
He hurried with his finished manuscript to the home of Gerrit Smith atPeterboro for a consultation with Smith, Sanborn, Higginson and Stearns.
Only Sanborn and Smith appeared. Brown outlined to them in brief hisplan of precipitating a conflict by the invasion of the Black Belt ofthe South and the establishment of a negro empire. Its details were asyet locked in his own breast.
Smith and Sanborn discussed his plans and his Constitution for theGovernment of the new power. In spite of its absurdities they agreedto support him in the venture. Smith gave the first contribution whichenabled him to call the convention of negroes and radicals at Chatham,Canada, to adopt the "Constitution."Brown went all the way to Springdale, Iowa, to escort the entire body ofhis disciples to this convention. And they came across a continentwith him--Stevens, Kagi, Cook, Owen Brown, and six new men whom he hadadded--Leeman, Tidd, Gill, Taylor, Parsons, Moffit and Realf.
Thirty-four negroes gathered with them. Among the negroes were RichardO. P. Anderson and James H. Harris of North Carolina.
The presiding officer was William C. Monroe, pastor of a negro church inDetroit. Kagi, the stenographer, was made Secretary of the Convention.
Brown addressed the gathering in an unique speech:
"For thirty years, my friends, a single passion has pursued my soul--toset at liberty the slaves of the South. I went to Europe in 1851 toinspect fortifications and study the methods of guerrilla warfare whichhave been successfully used in the old world. I have pondered theuprisings of the slaves of Rome, the deeds of Spartacus, the successesof Schamyl, the Circassian Chief, of Touissant L\'Overture in Haiti, ofthe negro Nat Turner who cut the throats of sixty Virginians in a singlenight in 1831.
"I have developed a plan of my own to sweep the South. You must trustme with its details. I shall depend on the blacks for the body of mysoldiers. And I expect every freedman in the North to flock to mystandard when the blow has fallen. I know that e............