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246 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

reach a place of safety either in Canada or the Northern States. He proposed
to add to his force in the mountains any courageous and intelligent fugitives
who might be willing to remain and endure the hardships and brave the
dangers of this mountain life. These, he thought, if properly selected, on
account of their knowledge of the surrounding country, could be made valuable
auxiliaries. The work of going into the valley of Virginia and persuading
the slaves to flee to the mountains, was to be committed to the most
courageous and judicious man connected with each squad.

Hating slavery as I did, and making its abolition the object of my life, I
was ready to welcome any new mode of attack upon the slave system which
gave any promise of success. I readily saw that this plan could be made very
effective in rendering slave property in Maryland and Virginia valueless by
rendering it insecure. Men do not like to buy runaway horses, nor to invest
their money in a species of property likely to take legs and walk off with
itself. In the worse case, too, if the plan should fail, and John Brown should
be driven from the mountains, a new fact would be developed by which the
nation would be kept awake to the existence of slavery. Hence, I assented to
this, John Brown's scheme or plan for running off slaves.

To set this plan in operation, money and men, arms and ammunition,
food and clothing, were needed; and these, from the nature of the enterprise,
were not easily obtained, and nothing was immediately done. Captain
Brown, too, notwithstanding his rigid economy, was poor, and was unable to
arm and equip men for the dangerous life he had mapped out. So the work
lingered till after the Kansas trouble was over, and freedom was a fact
accomplished in that Territory. This left him with arms and men, for the men
who had been with him in Kansas, believed in him, and would follow him
in any humane though dangerous enterprise he might undertake.

After the close of his Kansas work, Captain Brown came to my house in
Rochester, and said he desired to stop with me several weeks; "but," he
added, "I will not stay unless you will allow me to pay board." Knowing that
he was no trifler and meant all he said, and desirous of retaining him under
my roof, I charged three dollars a week. While here, he spent most of his
time in correspondence. He wrote often to George L. Stearns of Boston,
Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, N.Y., and many others, and received many letters
in return. When he was not writing letters, he was writing and revising a
constitution which he meant to put in operation by the men who should go
with him in the mountains. He said that to avoid anarchy and confusion,
there should be a regularly constituted government, to which each man who
came with him should be sworn to honor and support. I have a copy of this