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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 237

which one feels at the execution of a murderer. The amputation of a limb is a
severe trial to feeling, but necessity is a full justification of it to reason. To
call out a murderer at midnight, and without note or warning, judge or jury,
run him through with a sword, was a terrible remedy for a terrible malady.
The question was not merely which class should prevail in Kansas, but
whether free-state men should live there at all. The border ruffians from
Missouri had openly declared their purpose not only to make Kansas a slave
state, but that they would make it impossible for free-state men to live there.
They burned their towns, burned their farm-houses, and by assassination
spread terror among them until many of the free-state settlers were compelled
to escape for their lives. John Brown was therefore the logical result of slaveholding
persecutions. Until the lives of tyrants and murderers shall become
more precious in the sight of men than justice and liberty, John Brown will
need no defender. In dealing with the ferocious enemies of the free-state
cause in Kansas he not only showed boundless courage but eminent military
skill. With men so few and odds against him so great, few captains ever surpassed
him in achievements, some of which seem too disproportionate for
belief, and yet no voice has yet called them in question. With only eight men
he met, fought, whipped, and captured Henry Clay Pate with twenty-five
well-armed and well-mounted men. In this battle he selected his ground so
wisely, handled his men so skillfully, and attacked his enemies so vigorously,
that they could neither run nor fight, and were therefore compelled to surrender
to a force less than one-third their own. With just thirty men on another
memorable occasion he met and vanquished 400 Missourians under the command
of General Reid. These men had come into the territory under an oath
ne1er to return to their homes in Missouri till they had stamped out the last
1estige of the free-state spirit in Kansas. But a brush with old Brown instantly
took this high conceit out of them, and they were glad to get home upon any
terms, without stopping to stipulate. With less than 100 men to defend the
town of Lawrence, he offered to lead them and give battle to 1,400 men on
the banks of the Wakarusa river, and was much vexed when his offer was
refused by General Jim Lane and others, to whom the defense of the place
was committed. Before leaving Kansas he went into the border of Missouri
and liberated a dozen slaves in a single night, and despite of slave laws and
marshals, he brought these people through a half dozen States and landed
them safe in Canada. The successful efforts of the North in making Kansas a
free State, despite all the sophistical doctrines, and the sanguinary measures
of the South to make it a slave State, exercised a potent influence upon subsequent
political forces and events in the then near future. It is interesting to