s a gross
offence; no intoxicating liquors were permitted. One by-law runs:
'All profane, vulgar, or ungentlemanly talk shall be discountenanced.'
What! do these rough men set themselves up to be gentlemen! Yes,
according to Emerson's own meaning when he says of Brown's supporters:

'All gentlemen, of course, are on his side. I do not mean by
"gentlemen" people of scented hair and perfumed handkerchiefs, but men
of gentle blood and generosity, "fulfilled with all nobleness," who,
like the Cid, give the outcast leper a share of their bed; like the
dying Sidney, pass the cup of cold water to the wounded soldier who
needs it more. For what is the oath of gentle blood and knighthood!
What but to protect the weak and lowly against the strong oppressor!
Nothing is more absurd than to complain of this sympathy, or to
complain of a party of men united in opposition to slavery. As well
complain of gravity or the ebb of the tide. Who makes the
Abolitionist! The slave-holder. The sentiment of mercy is the natural
recoil which the laws of the universe provide to protect mankind from
destruction by savage passions. And our blind statesmen go up and
down, with committees of vigilance and safety, hunting for the origin
of this new heresy. They will need a very vigilant committee, indeed,
to find its birthplace, and a very strong force to root it up. For the
arch-abolitionist, older than Brown, and older than the Shenanndoah
Mountains, is Love, whose other name is Justice--which was before
Alfred, before Lycurgus, before Slavery, and will be after it.'

John Brown and, at one time, six of his sons were in the company. Many
were rejected who offered for service, not for lack of physical
stature, but moral. 'I would rather,' said John Brown, 'have the
smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in my camp than a man
without principles. It is a mistake to think that bullies are the best
fighters. Give me God-fearing men--men who respect themselves; and
with a dozen of them, I will oppose a hundred of these ruffians.'
These are the men, then, who were found in Kansas woods, with bare
heads and unkempt locks, in red-topped boots and blue shirts, taking
their hasty meals or fitful sleep, their horses tied to the tree-trunks
ready for swift mounting at the first signal of danger. No sounds of
revelry betray their hiding-place; the spirit of the man in their
midst, with Puritan nobility in his rugged face, and a strange,