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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 243

calling itself the Government of Virginia, but which in fact is but an organized
conspiracy by one party of the people against another and weaker)
denounce me as a coward, and assert that I promised to be present in person
at the Harper's Ferry insurrection. This is certainly a very grave impeachment
whether viewed in its bearings upon friends or upon foes, and you will
not think it strange that I should take a somewhat serious notice of it. Having
no acquaintance whatever with Mr. Cook, and never having exchanged a
word with him about Harper's Ferry insurrection, I am disposed to doubt if
he could have used the language concerning me, which the wires attribute to
him. The lightning when speaking for itself, is among the most direct, reliable,
and truthful of things; but when speaking of the terror-stricken slave-
holders at Harper's Ferry, it has been made the swiftest of liars. Under its
nimble and trembling fingers it magnifies 17 men into 700 and has since
filled the columns of the New York Herald for days with its interminable
contradictions. But assuming that it has told only the simple truth as to the
sayings of Mr. Cook in this instance. I have this answer to make to my
accuser: Mr. Cook may be perfectly right in denouncing me as a coward; I
have not one word to say in defense or vindication of my character for courage;
I have always been more distinguished for running than fighting, and
tried by the Harper's-Ferry-insurrection-test. I am most miserably deficient
in courage, even more so than Cook when he deserted his brave old captain
and fled to the mountains. To this extent Mr. Cook is entirely right, and will
meet no contradiction from me, or from anybody else. But wholly, grievously,
and most unaccountably wrong is Mr. Cook when he asserts that I
promised to be present in person at the Harper's Ferry insurrection. Of whatever
other imprudence and indiscretion I may have been guilty. I have never
made a promise so rash and wild as this. The taking of Harper's Ferry was a
measure never encouraged by my word or by my vote. At any time or place,
my wisdom or my cowardice, has not only kept me from Harper's Ferry, but
has equally kept me from making any promise to go there. I desire to be quite
emphatic here, for of all guilty men, he is the guiltiest who lures his fellow-
men to an undertaking of this sort, under promise of assistance which he
afterwards fails to render. I therefore declare that there is no man living, and
no man dead, who if living, could truthfully say that I ever promised him, or
anybody else, either conditionally, or otherwise, that I would be present in
person at the Harper's Ferry insurrection. My field of labor for the abolition
of slavery has not extended to an attack upon the United States arsenal. In the
teeth of the documents already published and of those which may hereafter
be published. I affirm that no man connected with that insurrection, from its

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Italicization needed at line 16.