The Battle of Principles

the intellect and conscience. For thinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was inevitable, and that commercial relations between North and South would soon be broken off. But

ifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation went on all over the North. Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, conciliate!" But there can be warfare, and only warfare between darkness and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right. At length Phillips and G

ad already been reached by poets, authors and editors, while the preachers and lecturers had driven their message home to the conviction of the ruling classes. Later on was to come the revival of 1857 that should

ngs of chimney sweeps, of children in the factories and mines of Great Britain. It was a novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," that later built People's Palace in the Whit

y in its very best condition and also in its worst form. The harrowing tales and incidents that were afterwards worked up into literary form by the gifted authoress were all matters of observation, conversation and experience. One of the earliest incidents of the Stowes' life in Cincinnati was an experience of Professor Stowe with one of the Beecher boys. While travelling in Kentucky, the two young men witnessed the flig

to attend it. One evening the mother of one of these coloured children came to the Stowes' house in a frenzy of terror, saying that her littl

paper in Cincinnati. One night the editor knocked at the door of the Stowe home, seeking refuge from a mob

s were afraid of the mob spirit, a young attorney named Salmon P. Chase volunteered his services without pay. As the courts were then entirely under the influence of the Fugitive Slave law, young Chase lost his case; but that no dramatic note might be wanting, this young attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court and wrote a d

ross the river into the Ohio, under no bond save his solemn pledge to his master not to run away. Mrs. Stowe wrote the letters for her servant, to this black man in Covington, Ky. One day, while visiting his wife, in the Stowe home, he said that he would rather cut off his right hand than break the word he

of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ were speaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under the blows of the slave whip." Long afterwards some one asked Mrs. Stowe how she came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answe

ranslated into German, French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almost every known language. Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of universal human nature, and aroused the learned as well as the simple. Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men in foreign countries. Charles Dickens wrote that he had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with the deepest interest and sympathy. Lord Carlisle sent a message of "deep an

es to all possible systems, without satisfaction, like Messalina after a licentious night, I now find myself on the same standpoint where poor Uncle Tom stands-on that of the Bible. I kneel down by my black brother in the same prayer. What a humiliation! With all my sense I have come no farther than the poor ignorant negro who has just learned to spell. Poor Tom indeed seems to have seen deeper things in the holy book than I, but I, who used to mak

heir signatures to a testimonial to be presented to Mrs. Stowe, for, when this testimonial came in, it filled twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in morocco

tes. George Eliot wrote her "Romola" with the historian and the philosopher and the editor of reviews ever in mind. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle

e bluest blood of the old Lexington families, with a heart so gentle that the sight of a young bird that had fallen out of the nest in the tree moved him to tears; but, little by little, pressed by his necessities and hardened by the spectacle of slaves bought and slaves sold, he himself sells the woman who has been a nurse to his

ves about him, debauching a young octaroon to the level of his mistress, hunting his slaves with bloodhounds, killing them without trial before a jury. Power is dangero

riticized "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with "Henry Esmond," "Vanity Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot achieved unique success in creating books that should reach their set, one thing is certain,-the boys, who afterwards became

mountains and prairie-had followed the career of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake to the horror of the slave traffic, the multit

ght the conference continued with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe, slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to righting the wrongs of the slaves; that he had heard a voice calling him to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they must expect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they must expect only

d as many guns. "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is Captain John Brown of Kansas." The first thing Mr. Grinnell did was to find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds. The next thing was to hide the wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by. Early the next morning the news spread like wild-fire, and the settlers began to pour in. John Brown made a speech to the farmers and ju

slavery governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare. When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or

our armed men were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the bountiful Giver. Oft

eturned to the mountains of Virginia, and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows of the night following the North Star to liberty. For many years he had been planning an uprising of the slaves, and an attack upon Virginia. Some biog

new Moses, out of the land of bondage. He intended to operate in the Blue Ridge Mountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery

ey captured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence whatsoever, they were in possession of Harper's Ferry. On Monday morning the panic spread like wild-fire. The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves of the South. In a few hours

My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John Brown of Kansas. Two of my sons were killed here to-day, and I am dying too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward. I have acted from a se

your hair is reddened by the blood of

an eternity behind and an eternity before, and this little speck in the centre is but a minute. The difference between your time and mine is trif

o die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life. I believe that for me, at this time, to seal my testimony for God and humanity th

em. I endeavoured to act up to that instruction. I believe that to interfere as I have done, in behalf of God's poor, was not wrong, but right. I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. If it is deemed necessary that I s

d about his scaffold. "This is a beautiful land," said Brown, as he rode, looking across the landscape. As he climbed the steps o

ly religious attendants be poor, little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted slave boys and girls, led by some gray-headed slave mother.... Farewell, farewell." He

blood, which he had spilled for a broken and despised race, seems right, and he seems to have died, not as a fool dies, but as martyrs die. That his enterprise was doomed to failure in advance, all knew. That it

g the Civil War. Other men and women assembled the explosives, but John Brown dropped the spark in the magazine, which finall