n similar to those contained in this
address. Yet now he goes freely to the very spot where John Brown
committed the offense which caused all Virginia to clamor for his
life, and without reserve or qualification, commends him as a hero and
martyr in the cause of liberty. This incident is rendered all the more
significant by the fact that Hon. Andrew Hunter, of Charlestown,--the
District Attorney who prosecuted John Brown and secured his
execution,--sat on the platform directly behind Mr. Douglass during
the delivery of the entire address and at the close of it shook hands
with him, and congratulated him, and invited him to Charlestown (where
John Brown was hanged), adding that if Robert E. Lee were living, he
would give him his hand also.

ADDRESS.

Not to fan the flame of sectional animosity now happily in the process
of rapid and I hope permanent extinction; not to revive and keep alive
a sense of shame and remorse for a great national crime, which has
brought its own punishment, in loss of treasure, tears and blood; not
to recount the long list of wrongs, inflicted on my race during more
than two hundred years of merciless bondage; nor yet to draw, from the
labyrinths of far-off centuries, incidents and achievements wherewith
to rouse your passions, and enkindle your enthusiasm, but to pay a
just debt long due, to vindicate in some degree a great historical
character, of our own time and country, one with whom I was myself
well acquainted, and whose friendship and confidence it was my good
fortune to share, and to give you such recollections, impressions and
facts, as I can, of a grand, brave and good old man, and especially to
promote a better understanding of the raid upon Harper's Ferry of
which he was the chief, is the object of this address.

In all the thirty years' conflict with slavery, if we except the late
tremendous war, there is no subject which in its interest and
importance will be remembered longer, or will form a more thrilling
chapter in American history than this strange, wild, bloody and
mournful drama. The story of it is still fresh in the minds of many
who now hear me, but for the sake of those who may have forgotten its
details, and in order to have our subject in its entire range more
fully and clearly before us at the outset, I will briefly state the
facts in that extraordinary transaction.

On the night of the 16th of October, 1859, there appeared near the
confluence of the Potom