arena of life, by word and by deed, has sought to incite the slaves and the entire nation to a living, practical resistance to slaveholders, in every department of life, and who has taught the people of the North, for twenty-five years, that the purest, sublimest, and most acceptable worship they could render to the God of Justice and Liberty is—"to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free."
LETTER TO HENRY A. WISE,
written on the day in which he killed john brown for seeking to give freedom to slaves.
To Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia:
Sir,—This is the day and this the hour in which John Brown is being hanged by you. His dead body is now hanging on a gallows, and the eyes of twenty-five millions of this nation are fixed upon it. You erected that gallows, you dragged him to it, you tied that rope around his neck, you bound his hands and his feet, you drew that cap over his eyes, and having thus rendered him blind and helpless, you broke his neck.
At fifteen minutes past eleven o'clock, A. M., this day, you murdered John Brown! The entire nation saw you do it, and is a witness against you. Yourself, Virginia, and the nation, at this hour, adjudge you a murderer.
Why did you hang him? This is the one thought of the nation. You must answer it. How? You yourself have pronounced him one of "the truest, bravest, most sincere and noble" men you ever saw. You and your accomplices in this deed of blood assure us that the nation contained not a more "sincere, honest, heroic and conscientious man." Why, then, did you kill him?
