Honoring a Great Law-Breaker.

On the evening of Friday, December 2, the twenty-second anniversary of the execution of old John Brown of Ossawattomie at Harper’s Ferry, a festival in honor of the hero’s memory was held at New York in the theatre of Turn Hall. A large audience, made up in part of ladies, was present, including also not a few colored people. The hall was prettily and appropriately decorated with flowers and mottoes. The meeting was held under the auspices of workingmen, and, as was eminently fit, the tributes of the evening to the martyr of oppressed black labor came from the lips of men now among the foremost in championing oppressed white labor,— the speakers being Hugh McGregor, Victor Drury, and John Swinton. The latter made the principal speech of the evening, and nothing could be more appropriate to Liberty’s columns than the following extract from the New York’ “Sun’s” report:


It were hard to tell in what way we should properly estimate the depth and the scope of the influence of this man John Brown upon our country’s history. We know that after ages of ascendancy for American slavery, he was the first man to enter its stronghold and smite it with the sword; and we know how quickly the sword that was struck from his hand brought destruction to American slavery. We know how slavery stood in safety before he delivered his blow; we know how it reeled to ruin under that blow. We know how the South was startled by Harper’s Ferry, and how the North. It was the challenge to battle, the first shot in the war.

It was a new policy that John Brown brought into play against American slavery,— the policy of meeting it upon its own terms and its own field, confronting with force a system based upon force, and establishing human rights by the weapons that upheld public wrongs. In place of the old way of acquiescing in slavery, or compromising with it, or arguing over it, or resisting its extension, he adopted the way of assailing it by the only means that gave any hope of destroying it. John Brown’s way was justified by the event — justified amid flame and smoke by Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of abolition. . . . . . . . .

I proclaim it here to-night ns my judgment that the man who goes highest in his estimate of the immediate, the far off, and the permanent efficacy of John Brown’s influence, is most nearly right.

Now, then, in this view of his life and work, and from this vantage of the years, I acclaim as Prophet, Hero, Martyr, and Victor, the man John Brown — prophet for half a century, hero for five years, martyr for a day, victor forever — victorious in Kansas with his rifle, victorious in Virginia on his scaffold, victor against slavery in the United States,— victor over the earth and through the ages — his name as a pillar of fire in the sky, guiding men to the Canaan which be himself saw not.

But hark! I hear the drool of Old Legality that John Brown was condemned and hanged under the authority of government and law. Ay, it is true. So we then hold that John Brown was guilty? Nay, nay, nay; but let our guilty system of government and law beware lest his condemnation be its doom.

What is this thing that arrogates to itself the title of law, the records of which are foul with wrong — the hands of which are red with the world’s best blood — the administrators of which were so perfectly described by Zephaniab, the Hebrew prophet, who said “The Judges are wolves, gnawing the bones” — which has supported every powerful culprit and every incorporate monstrosity — which poisoned Socrates, slew the Gracchi, strangled Savonarola, beheaded Vane, burned Servetus, hanged John Brown — ay, crucified the young Galilean himself — the devices of which are the scourge, the rack, the wheel, the stake, the gibbet, the cross, and every invention of torture?

Who are these beloved felons at law arrayed in white, for they are worthy, their names effulgent in the sky, burnishing the dull world? How many of the apostles and prophets of the ages have fallen victims to the fraud misnamed law? The world is to-day as busily engaged as ever it was in sacrificing them. Look at the scaffolds of Russia, the dungeons of Germany. But, my hearers, this will not last forever. As Samson in his death brought down the temple of Dagon, as John Brown in his death shivered the bulwarks of chattel slavery, so every martyr hastens the end of the system under which he is sacrificed.

Well, now, my hearers of to-night, though chattel slavery has been abolished from our country, we have yet other wrongful and destructive things established among us which, in their turn, shall be brought to the judgment of justice. Take notice, then, of a few of the features of John Brown’s revolutionary action:

1. John Brown acted under his own authority, or, as he himself said, “under the auspices of John Brown,” by the power of his own manhood, in behalf of right and man’s rights. He took the responsibility, seeking no sanction other than that of his own conscience. He did not refrain from action because he was weak, nor wait till the majority was on his side. “I acknowledge no master in human form,” said John Brown.

2. John Brown did not hesitate to confront the government and all its menaces. He stood by himself against all the established shows of the day — political, ecclesiastical, and pecuniary.

3. John Brown violated law and the laws.

4. John Brown believed in destroying wrongful institutions by the sword, when no other way was available.

5. John Brown believed in fighting for others, in giving his life for the freedom of slaves.

6. John Brown took no heed of self-interest, obloquy, petty prudence, or the condemnation and vengeance of the times.

7. John Brown put his whole soul in his work, and gave it all he had, his own life and his four sons, three of whom fell by his side.

8. Yet withal, John Brown was a practical and sensible man, the attestation of which are his work and his success.

If it be not for us of to-day to imitate John Brown’s action, well were it for us to possess the qualities of soul that underlay it.

Other times need other work and ways of other men. Man rises to each occasion. For every emergency, bountiful nature furnishes the man. . . . . . . . .

According to the song that swelled from our embattled hosts during the years of strife, John Brown was a body and a soul, which became a mouldering body and a marching soul. Behold John Brown in the body — erect, rugged and grim, battling for man and for freedom, closing his career on the gallows. Behold John Brown’s soul, luminous and august, compassionate and benignant, enriching us all by its radiance, raising us all by its puissance, and softening us all by its tender grace, of which he made such sublime display during the closing scenes of his life.

A monument to John Brown here in our city! Would that my fiat could raise it aloft! There is already a monument to John Brown at North Elba, where he is buried; there is, I believe, another at Ossawattomie, on the plains of Kansas; his statue will stand in the Capitol at Washington; and in the quiet Massachusetts town of Concord, you may see, in the Summer School of Philosophy, besides the busts of Anaxagoras, Plato, Pestalozzi, and Emerson, the bust of John Brown. But I should like to see two other memorials or monuments to this man — one of them here in our city, at this gate of the continent; the other at Charlestown, in Virginia, on the site of his scaffold — so that the North and the South, and all the world, would thus again have perpetual reminder that here was a man of our nineteenth century who, accounting his own life and home and treasures as naught, gave himself to battle and death that he might deliver those who were crushed and lost, even black slaves.

How hopeful were the times and the skies, had we among us but a few men — ay, or one man — of John Brown’s conscience, judgment, valor, righteousness, and, above all, of his self-sacrificing life!

Now, as my last words for to-night, I exclaim: Great were John Brown’s life and work and triumph! Worthy, thrice worthy, is John Brown!

In the course of the meeting Prof. Marquand played on the piano a funeral march by Beethoven, “John Brown’s Body,” “The Marseillaise,” and “Marching Through Georgia.”