such an
attempt. They pointed out the almost certainty of failure and
destruction, and attempted to dissuade him from the mad scheme; but to
no purpose. They saw they were dealing with a foregone conclusion; he
had convoked them, not to advise as to methods, but to furnish the
means. All reasonable argument he met with his rigid dogmatic
formulas, his selected proverbs, his favorite texts of Scripture. The
following, preserved by various witnesses as samples of his sayings at
other times, indicate his reasoning on this occasion: "Give a slave a
pike and you make him a man. I would not give Sharps rifles to more
than ten men in a hundred, and then only when they have learned to use
them. A ravine is better than a plain. Woods and mountain-sides can be
held by resolute men against ten times their force. Nat Turner, with
fifty men, held Virginia five weeks; the same number, well organized
and armed, can shake the system out of the State." "A few men in the
right, and knowing they are right, can overturn a king. Twenty men in
the Alleghanies could break slavery to pieces in two years." "If God
be for us, who can be against us? Except the Lord keep the city, the
watchman waketh but in vain."

[Sidenote] Ibid., March, 1875, p. 329.

[Sidenote] Sanborn, "Life and Letters of John Brown," p. 439.

[Sidenote] Sanborn, "Atlantic," July, 1872, pp. 53-4.

One of the participants relates, that--"When the agitated party broke
up their council for the night, it was perfectly plain that Brown
could not be held back from his purpose." The discussion of the
friends on the second day (February 23) was therefore only whether
they should aid him, or oppose him, or remain indifferent. Against
every admonition of reason, mere personal sympathy seems to have
carried a decision in favor of the first of these alternatives. "You
see how it is," said the chief counselor, Gerrit Smith; "our dear old
friend has made up his mind to this course and cannot be turned from
it. We cannot give him up to die alone; we must support him." Brown
has left an exact statement of his own motive and expectation, in a
letter to Sanborn on the following day. "I have only had this one
opportunity in a life of nearly sixty years ... God has honored but
comparatively a very small part of mankind with any possible chance
for such mighty and soul-satisfying rewards ... I expect nothing but
to endure hardness, but I expect to effect a mighty conquest, even
thoug