Brown might set the whole State in flames. A sense
of this appalling liability put an end to every noble consideration.
His death was a foregone conclusion, and his trial was simply one of
form.

Honor to the brave young Col. Hoyt who hastened from Massachusetts to
defend his friend's life at the peril of his own; but there would have
been no hope of success had he been allowed to plead the case. He
might have surpassed Choate or Webster in power--a thousand physicians
might have sworn that Capt. Brown was insane, it would have been all
to no purpose; neither eloquence nor testimony could have prevailed.
Slavery was the idol of Virginia, and pardon and life to Brown meant
condemnation and death to slavery. He had practically illustrated a
truth stranger than fiction,--a truth higher than Virginia had ever
known,--a truth more noble and beautiful than Jefferson ever wrote. He
had evinced a conception of the sacredness and value of liberty which
transcended in sublimity that of her own Patrick Henry and made even
his fire-flashing sentiment of "Liberty or Death" seem dark and tame
and selfish. Henry loved liberty for himself, but this man loved
liberty for all men, and for those most despised and scorned, as well
as for those most esteemed and honored. Just here was the true glory
of John Brown's mission. It was not for his own freedom that he was
thus ready to lay down his life, for with Paul he could say, "I was
born free." No chain had bound his ankle, no yoke had galled his neck.
History has no better illustration of pure, disinterested benevolence.
It was not Caucasian for Caucasian--white man for white man; not rich
man for rich man, but Caucasian for Ethiopian--white man for black
man--rich man for poor man--the man admitted and respected, for the
man despised and rejected. "I want you to understand, gentlemen," he
said to his persecutors, "that I respect the rights of the poorest and
weakest of the colored people, oppressed by the slave system, as I do
those of the most wealthy and powerful." In this we have the key to
the whole life and career of the man. Than in this sentiment humanity
has nothing more touching, reason nothing more noble, imagination
nothing more sublime; and if we could reduce all the religions of the
world to one essence we could find in it nothing more divine. It is
much to be regretted that some great artist, in sympathy with the
spirit of the occasion, had not been present when these and si