The Natick Resolution; or, Resistance to Slaveholders/Letter to Governor Wise (Second)
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?
Had he made an effort to rescue you, your wife and daughters, your mother and sisters from slavery and from the vengeance, the wrath, the rape and rapine of your slaves, would you have hung him? No. But he sought to rescue slaves from the wrath, rape and rapine of yourself and your fellow slave-breeders and slave-traders, and you killed him. Had he done for you and them the very deeds for which you have hung him, you and they would have pronounced him innocent, and crowned him with glory.
Your slaves have as good a right to enslave you, as you have to enslave them. They have as good a right to scourge your naked back, to drive you to unpaid toil, to sell you as a beast, to shoot you and tear you to pieces with bloodhounds, if you run away, as you have to do these things to them. They have as good a right to subject your wife and daughters, and your mother and sisters, to their passions, as you have to subject theirs to yours. They have as good a right to perpetrate robbery, murder, rape and rapine upon you and your confederates in slave-breeding and slave-trading, and upon your wives and children, as you have to perpetrate like outrages upon them. They have as good a right to defend themselves and families against you and your associates in plunder and rapine, as you have to defend yourselves against them. You and your co-workers in crime call on the North to come down and defend you and your families against your slaves. They come and defend you, and you thank them. The slaves call on John Brown to come down and deliver them and their families from your lusts and your cruelties, and defend their property, their liberties and lives against you. You say it is the duty of the North to defend you against the slaves. John Brown and his God told him it was his duty to defend the slaves against you. He came to Virginia to do so, and for doing his duty, you have hung him. Are you not a murderer?
What says Virginia of your deed? The slaves and all the world look on the seal with which, as Governor of the State, you stamp your letters and all public documents. What do they see? Virginia, standing with one foot on the neck of a prostrate slaveholder, whose head she has just cut off, and holding in her right hand the sword with which she did the deed, all reeking with his blood. Proud and exultant she stands, and in the consciousness of having done a meritorious deed, by ridding the world of a monster and Humanity of its most malignant foe, she challenges the homage of all for what she has done, and in her pride of victory exclaims:—Sic semper tyrannis—"Thus always deal with slaveholders"—i.e., cut their heads off.
Thus Virginia, the State over which you are so proud to preside, says to your slaves, and to all slaves in the State, and in the United States, and in all the world—"Cut off your masters' heads." Not content with mere words, she pictures to them her own proud achievement, and calls on them to look at her in the very act of vanquishing her direst foe, and of beheading him; thus inciting them, by an appeal to the eye as well as to the ear, to resistance, to insurrection, and to blood.
In her Constitution, Virginia says to her slaves, "You are born as free as are your masters, and have the same God-given right to your earnings, to yourselves, your wives, husbands, children and homes as they have." She is ever sounding in the ears of the slaves—"Give me liberty or give me death!"—"Resistance to slaveholders is obedience to God." All the slaveholders and white men and women in Virginia are ever saying to the slaves, "If you, or any others, were to do unto us as we are daily and hourly doing unto you, we would kill, slay and destroy you. If we were in your places, we would kill every man, woman and child that should attempt to prevent us from getting and maintaining our freedom." Thus your State appeals to the slaves, to incite them to a bloody insurrection.
You, sir, make this appeal to the slaves, and to the people of the North. You flaunt this most ferocious and blood-thirsty prayer in their faces every time you set your official seal to a commission, a warrant, a draft, a law, or any document. By this act, your prayer to the slave is, "Arise! and cut off the heads of all slaveholders!"—and you invoke the North to come and help them. John Brown heard your prayer, and the prayer of Virginia. In answer to it, he came to Harper's Ferry. He there sought to rescue men and women from the condition of brutes and chattels, and to restore to them their God-given and State-acknowledged rights. He did not aim to do the bloody deed to slaveholders which you and Virginia exhorted him to do—i.e., behead them! No; he was kind to the tyrants, to his own injury. He simply sought to lead some slaves, imbruted by you and your copartners in crime, to a land of freedom. By your official seal and Constitution, and your historical reminiscences, you invited John Brown to come to Harper's Ferry and run off slaves, and to kill all who should oppose him. You and Virginia declared that it was the right and duty of the slaves to rise against their masters, and to gain their freedom by running away, or by beheading their oppressors; and you told him it was his right and duty to help them. John Brown came, with twenty-one assistants, to help him in a work which you and all Virginia acknowledge would have been a work of love, justice, and humanity, had it been done to free you from slavery. You mustered the State, called on the United States to hasten to your aid, surrounded the self-forgetting hero and his little band, and shot or hung them, deeming that you did a brave and heroic act! You mustered the State and nation to the defence of your property, your wives and children, your houses and lives, against twenty-one men, who had no thought of harm to you, but simply thought to give freedom to slaves. Such bravery must, one day, be appreciated. He was as innocent as were Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, and Patrick Henry, and far more deserving the approval of mankind. You took him, bound him hand and foot, blindfolded him, and then broke his neck! Yourself and Virginia being witnesses, are you not a murderer? Verily, you have your reward!
Why have you and Virginia hung John Brown? To defend your property, (your slaves,) your liberty and lives, against robbery and murder; and your wives and daughters, your mothers and sisters, against rape and rapine. And not being able to defend yourselves, you and Virginia called on the United States to come and help you. You do, then, hold that it is a right and duty to shoot and hang and behead people in defence of liberty, life and home?
You, then, and Virginia, being witnesses, it is the right and duty of the slaves to defend their earnings, their liberty and lives, by arms and blood; and their wives and daughters against the rapine of their masters. You and your fellow slave-breeders and slave-traders live by robbing slaves of their labor, by invading their homes, and ravishing their wives, daughters and sisters, and plundering their nurseries and cradles; and by murdering them, if they attempt to defend themselves and their families. So, in the very act of hanging Brown to defend yourself, you justify him in doing the deed for which you hang him!
Slaves of the South! People of the North! Look at the commission of Judge Parker, who sentenced Brown to be hung; look at the commission of General Taliaferro, who heads the troops of Virginia and of the United States, now surrounding the gallows on which hangs his murdered body; open the commission of Captain Avis, the jailor, and of Sheriff Campbell, who now stand by that murdered body! Whose name is on all these? Not that of Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia. What seal is that? Virginia—her foot on the prostrate and headless form of a slaveholder!
Once more: that death-warrant! Look at it! The name of Henry A. Wise is there. What is the import of that seal? To the slaves it says: "Arise! Cut off your masters' heads! Kill, slay and destroy all who would enslave you, or molest you in your efforts to secure your freedom!" To John Brown it says, "Hasten to Harper's Ferry; incite the slaves to run away, and help them to exterminate all who shall attempt to impede their exodus!"
Thus, in the very death-warrant under which Brown is hung, you and Virginia pronounce him innocent of all evil, and justify the very deed for which you hang him. In every way, you pronounce him guiltless. Yet, you have hung him! Are you not a murderer? Yes! Henry A. Wise and Virginia being witnesses. Yes! the heart, the conscience, the reason and history of the nation being witnesses. Yes! by the testimony of mankind, and by the voice of God.
Dream not that John Brown will appear in this world's history as "a fool," "a fanatic," "a robber," "a ruffian," "a madman," "a monomaniac," "a marauder," or "a murderer." His plan was formed in wisdom and righteousness; and was executed in purest justice, goodness and benevolence, according to the religion and government of Virginia, and of the United States; and according to the convictions of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the people.
What was his object? To arouse the nation to consider the sin, the shame, and the danger of slavery, with a view to its abolition. What was his plan of action? Running slaves off, or dying in the attempt. Either would answer his purpose. This he knew, and was prepared for the alternative. Death at your hands overtook him in the attempt, and when in the act of breaking his neck, your word was heard throughout the land, saying, "Surely, this is a just man!" Has he failed? Never was the life of man—death, rather—a more complete success.
What has been the one ruling thought of Virginia, and of every slave State, and of the Union, the past two months? John Brown and Harper's Ferry! What the one spoken and unspoken word of the entire nation? John Brown and Harper's Ferry! The one pulsation of the nation's heart has been,—John Brown and him hung, for seeking to free slaves! John Brown, the friend of the slave, has edited every paper, presided over every domestic and social circle, over every prayer, conference and church meeting, over every pulpit and platform, and over every Legislative, Judicial and Executive department of government; and he will edit every paper, and govern Virginia and all the Slates, and preside over Congress, guide its deliberations, and control all political caucuses and elections, for one year to come.
In a word, John Brown and him hung will be the one thought of the nation; and John Brown and him hung for "bearing the yoke of the oppressed as if upon his own neck," is now, and will continue to be, the one deep and humiliating feeling that will fill every heart with grief, sadness, shame, indignation and loathing. John Brown has triumphed; and that, too, according to his expectations, in death.
You have murdered him; but you, Virginia, and the nation, retire from the bloody deed a thousand-fold more impotent to defend slavery than you were before. You have murdered his body; but John Brown holds you, Virginia, the nation, and slavery, in his firm, determined grasp, more completely than he ever did before.
May John Brown and him hung be to you, Virginia, and the nation, what Christ and him crucified was to his executioner, "A savor of life unto life, and not of death unto death!"
Thine, for eternal life to freedom, and a speedy death to slavery,