93

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Needs Review

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 245

terms. If I have committed any offense against society I have done so on the
soil of the State of New York, and I should be perfectly willing to be
arraigned there before an impartial jury; but I have quite insuperable objections
to being caught by the hounds of Mr. Buchanan, and 'bagged' by Gov.
Wise. For this appears to be the arrangement. Buchanan does the fighting
and hunting, and Wise 'bags' the game. Some reflections may be made upon
my leaving on a tour to England just at this time. I have only to say that my
going to that country has been rather delayed than hastened by the insurrection
at Harper's Ferry. All know that I had intended to leave here in the first
week of November.

"FREDERICK DOUGLASS."

CHAPTER X.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

My connection with John Brown — To and from England — Presidential contest —Election
of
Abraham Lincoln.

What was my connection with John Brown, and what I knew of his scheme
for the capture of Harper's Ferry, I may now proceed to state. From the time
or my visit to him in Springfield, Mass., in 1847, our relations were friendly
and confidential. I never passed through Springfield without calling on him,
and he never came to Rochester without calling on me. He often stopped
over night with me when we talked over the feasibility of his plan for
destroying the value of slave property, and the motive for holding slaves in
the border States. That plan, as already intimated elsewhere, was to take
twenty or twenty-five discreet and trustworthy men into the mountains of
Virginia and Maryland, and station them in squads of five, about five miles
apart, on a line of twenty-five miles; each squad to co-operate with all, and
all with each. They were to have selected for them, secure and comfortable
retreats in the fastnesses of the mountains, where they could easily defend
themselves in case of attack. They were to subsist upon the country roundabout.
They were to be well armed, but were to avoid battle or violence,
unless compelled hy pursuit or in self-defense. In that case, they were to
make it as costly as possible to the assailing party, whether that party should
be soldiers or citizens. He further proposed to have a number of stations
from the line of Pennsylvania to the Canada border, where such slaves as he
might, through his men, induce to run away, should be supplied with food
and shelter and be forwarded from one station to another till they should

Notes and Questions

Please sign in to write a note for this page

tarshalj

Italicization needed at lines 6 & 8.