e participation in various bloody
crimes, and abuses his biographers and eulogists. Dr. Brown
writes as an eye-witness of many of the things which he
describes; but of his credibility we have no means of judging
save so far as the bitterness of his tone casts suspicion on
his veracity."

Happily we are able to tell just what Brown himself thought of his
detractor, and of the paper that he conducted; for in July, 1858,
writing to F.G. Sanborn, he says: "I believe all honest, sensible Free
State men in Kansas consider George Washington Brown's _Herald of
Freedom_ one of the most mischievous, traitorous publications in the
whole country."

"A murderous fanatic and midnight assassin" is what the _Louisville
Journal_ calls him. Just what the same paper calls Mr. Phillip
Thompson, Member of Congress from Kentucky, I cannot state; but from
the generally warped nature of its judgment I am not disposed to set
much store by its opinion of him of Harper's Ferry.

"Without doubt he suffered the just recompense of his deeds," says one
who twenty-five years ago was loud and eloquent in his denunciation of
the "taking off." This man has since sat in Congress with hosts of
Rebel brigadiers, has shaken by the hand Chalmers of Fort Pillow
infamy, has listened to the reconstructed ex-Vice-President of the
Confederacy on the floor of the House of Representatives. There is
something wrong here, and I leave it to the lawyers to decide where.
Brown had no malice against individuals, hence to have hung him for
murder was wrong. If he suffered death for treason against the United
States, then what a gigantic wrong has been done in admitting to the
highest offices those who likewise were treasonable. For myself, I am
ready to affirm that if the present status of affairs is right, there
was most grievous wrong done Brown. The larger and more extended the
treason only adds so much more to the crime. Perhaps had the
"reconstruction" following his foray been associated with more
ballots, or in other words, had conciliation been necessary to the
proper maintenance of a particular party, perhaps, I say, he had been
not only pardoned but elected to Congress.

Fate has assigned to John Brown one of the highest niches in the
Temple of Fame. Thinking only of the name that must be his through all
time, I would not have the past undone; but to-night, after so many
days, it is not amiss to ask ourselves "what might have been?"
Grant