d judge of wool, as a wool-dealer ought
to be. In all visible respects he was a man like unto other men. No
outward sign of Kansas or Harper's Ferry was about him. As I knew him,
he was an even-tempered man, neither morose, malicious nor
misanthropic, but kind, amiable, courteous, and gentle in his
intercourse with men. His words were few, well chosen and forcible. He
was a good business man, and a good neighbor. A good friend, a good
citizen, a good husband and father: a man apparently in every way
calculated to make a smooth and pleasant path for himself through the
world. He loved society, he loved little children, he liked music, and
was fond of animals. To no one was the world more beautiful or life
more sweet. How then as I have said shall we explain his apparent
indifference to life? I can find but one answer, and that is, his
intense hatred to oppression. I have talked with many men, but I
remember none, who seemed so deeply excited upon the subject of
slavery as he. He would walk the room in agitation at mention of the
word. He saw the evil through no mist or haze, but in a light of
infinite brightness, which left no line of its ten thousand horrors
out of sight. Law, religion, learning, were interposed in its behalf
in vain. His law in regard to it was that which Lord Brougham
described, as "the law above all the enactments of human codes, the
same in all time, the same throughout the world--the law unchangeable
and eternal--the law written by the finger of God on the human
heart--that law by which property in man is, and ever must remain, a
wild and guilty phantasy."

Against truth and right, legislative enactments were to his mind mere
cobwebs--the pompous emptiness of human pride--the pitiful
outbreathings of human nothingness. He used to say "whenever there is
a right thing to be done, there is a 'thus saith the Lord' that it
shall be done."

It must be admitted that Brown assumed tremendous responsibility in
making war upon the peaceful people of Harper's Ferry, but it must be
remembered also that in his eye a slave-holding community could not be
peaceable, but was, in the nature of the case, in one incessant state
of war. To him such a community was not more sacred than a band of
robbers: it was the right of any one to assault it by day or night. He
saw no hope that slavery would ever be abolished by moral or political
means: "he knew," he said, "the proud and hard hearts of the
slave-holders, and tha