came, few men were found willing to lay down
their lives in defence of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like
that this should be their last act in this world.

But to make haste to his last act, and its effects.

The newspapers seem to ignore, or perhaps are really ignorant of the
fact, that there are at least as many as two or three individuals to
a town throughout the North who think much as the present speaker does
about him and his enterprise. I do not hesitate to say that they are an
important and growing party. We aspire to be something more than stupid
and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but
desecrating every house and every day we breathe in. Perhaps anxious
politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes
were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove
this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still
dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of
the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of
the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had
succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no
crape, the thought of that man's position and probable fate is spoiling
many a man's day here at the North for other thinking. If any one who
has seen him here can pursue successfully any other train of thought, I
do not know what he is made of. If there is any such who gets his
usual allowance of sleep, I will warrant him to fatten easily under any
circumstances which do not touch his body or purse. I put a piece of
paper and a pencil under my pillow, and when I could not sleep, I wrote
in the dark.

On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh
a million, is not being increased these days. I have noticed the
cold-blooded way in which newspaper writers and men generally speak
of this event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual
"pluck,"--as the Governor of Virginia is reported to have said, using
the language of the cock-pit, "the gamest man he ever saw,"--had been
caught, and were about to be hung. He was not dreaming of his foes when
the governor thought he looked so brave. It turns what sweetness I have
to gall, to hear, or hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When
we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he
died as the fool dieth"; which, pardon me, fo