ne is inclined to
question the wisdom of the insurgent leader. Whether Nat Turner
hastened or postponed the day of the abolition of slavery, however, is
a question that admits of little or much discussion in accordance with
opinions concerning the law of necessity and free will in national
life. Considered in the light of its immediate effect upon its
participants, it was a failure, an egregious failure, a wanton crime.
Considered in its necessary relation to slavery and as contributory to
making it a national issue by the deepening and stirring of the then
weak local forces, that finally led to the Emancipation Proclamation
and the Thirteenth Amendment, the insurrection was a moral success and
Nat Turner deserves to be ranked with the greatest reformers of his
day.

This insurrection may be considered an effort of the Negro to help
himself rather than depend on other human agencies for the protection
which could come through his own strong arm; for the spirit of Nat
Turner never was completely quelled. He struck ruthlessly,
mercilessly, it may be said, in cold blood, innocent women and
children; but the system of which he was the victim had less mercy in
subjecting his race to the horrors of the "middle passages" and the
endless crimes against justice, humanity and virtue, then perpetrated
throughout America. The brutality of his onslaught was a reflex of
slavery, the object lesson which he gave brought the question home to
every fireside until public conscience, once callous, became quickened
and slavery was doomed.

JOHN W. CROMWELL

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nat Turner was a familiar name in the household in which the
author was reared, as his home was within fifty miles of the place of
Turner's exploits. In 1871, the last term of the author's service as a
teacher in the public schools of Virginia, was spent in this same
county, with a people, many of whom personally knew Nat Turner and his
comrades.

Nat Turner was born October 2, 1800, the slave of Benjamin Turner. His
father, a native of Africa, escaped from slavery and finally emigrated
to Liberia, where, it is said, his grave is quite as well known as
that of Franklin's, Jefferson's or Adams's is to the patriotic
American. There is now living in the city of Baltimore a man who on
good authority claims to be the grandson of Nat Turner and a son of
his was said to be still living in Southampton County, Virginia, in
189