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Show Henry Ward Beecher. two thou and friend , who lost their courage in the }Jl'C ence of seventeen men, arc now making an appeal to thi~ nation to lose its courage too, that the cowardice of the few may be hidden in the cowardice- of the whole community! It i impossible. vV e choose to wear our courage for some time lonrrer. As I shall not recur to this epic in Virginia hi tory again to-night, I must say a word in respect to the head anu heart of it. For it all stood in the courage of one man. An old man, kind at heart, industrious, peaceful, went forth, with a large family of children, to seek a new home in l{an as. That infant colony held thousands of soub as noble as liberty ever inspired or religion enriched. A great scowling Slave State, its nearest neighbor, sought to tread down thi:-; libertyloving colony, ami to dragoon Slavery into it by force of arms. The armed citizens of another State cro~sed tl1e State lines, destroyed the freedom of the ballot-box, prevented a fair expres ion of public sentiment, corruptly usurped law-making power, and ordained by fraud law as infamou ~ as the sun ever saw, assaulted its infant ettl 'ment with arm d hordes, ravaged the ficltL, de troycd hane ·t and herch, and carried death to a multitude of cabins. The United States Government had no marines for this occa. ion ! No Federal troops were posted by cars, night and day, for the poor, the weak, the grossly-wronged men in l{ansa". There was nn army there that unfurled the banner of the Union, but it wa ~ on the side of the wrong doers, not on the side of the injured. It was in this field that Brown received his impulse. A tender father, who e life wm; in his sons' life, he saw his fir thorn seized like a felon, chained, driven aero s the country, crazed by suffering and heat, beaten by the officer in charge, like a dog, and long lying at death's door. Another noble boy, without warning, without offence, unarmed, in open day, in the midst of the city, was shot dead! No justice sought out the murderers. No United States Attorney was de- Henry Ward Beecher. spatched in hot ha te. No marines or soldiers aided the wronged and weak ! The hot that ~truck the child's heart, crazed the father's brain. Revolving his wrong~, and nur::iing his hatred of that deadly sy. tern that breed" ~uch contempt of ju:-~ticc ancl humanity, at length his phantoms a ume a slender form, and organize such an enterprise as one might expect from a mnn whom grief had bereft of good jullgmcnt . . lie goc to the heart of a Slave State. One man- and sixteen followers I he seizes two thousand brave Virginians anll hold::; them in dure s. When a great State attackell a handful of weak coloni:::;ts the government and nation were torpid, but when sev 'nteen men attacked a sovereign State, then l\Iary lanll nrms, and Virginia arms, and the United States Government arms, and they three ru ·h against seventeen men! Travellers tell us that the Geysers of Iceland- those singulat · boiling ~prings of the North- may be tranRportcd with fury hy plucking up a handful of grass or turf and throwing them into the prings. The hot springs of Virginia arc of the same kind! A handful of men was thrown into them, and what a boiling there ha been ! llut, meanwhile, no one can fail to see that this poor, childbereft old man is the manliest of them all. Bold, unflinching, honcc::t, without deceit or dougc, refusing to take tcclmieal advantages of any sort, but openly nvO\ving hi principle ~ and motives, glorying in them in danger and death, as much as when in security- that wounded old father is the most remarkable figure in this whole drama. The governor, the officers of the State, and all the attorneys are pygmies compared to him. I deplore his mi fortunes. I sympathize with hi~ sorrows. I mourn the hiding or obscuration of hi:; reason. I di:..;approve of his mad and feeble Rcheme:"'. I ~hrink from tl1' f(>lly of the bloody foray, and I shrink, likcwis ·, from all anti ·i patiuns |