like the
heroes they were, without a murmur, without a regret, believing alike
in their captain and their cause.

For the disastrous termination of this invasion, several causes have
been assigned. It has been said that Capt. Brown found it necessary to
strike before he was ready; that men had promised to join him from the
North who failed to arrive; that the cowardly negroes did not rally to
his support as he expected, but the true cause as stated by himself,
contradicts all these theories, and from his statement there is no
appeal. Among the questions put to him by Mr. Vallandingham after his
capture were the following: "Did you expect a general uprising of the
slaves in case of your success?" To this he answered, "No, sir, nor
did I wish it. I expected to gather strength from time to time and
then to set them free." "Did you expect to hold possession here until
then?" Answer, "Well, probably I had quite a different idea. I do not
know as I ought to reveal my plans. I am here wounded and a prisoner
because I foolishly permitted myself to be so. You overstate your
strength when you suppose I could have been taken if I had not allowed
it. I was too tardy after commencing the open attack in delaying my
movements through Monday night and up to the time of the arrival of
government troops. It was all because of my desire to spare the
feelings of my prisoners and their families."

But the question is, Did John Brown fail? He certainly did fail to get
out of Harper's Ferry before being beaten down by United States
soldiers; he did fail to save his own life, and to lead a liberating
army into the mountains of Virginia. But he did not go to Harper's
Ferry to save his life. The true question is, Did John Brown draw his
sword against slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? and to this I
answer ten thousand times, No! No man fails, or can fail who so
grandly gives himself and all he has to a righteous cause. No man, who
in his hour of extremest need, when on his way to meet an ignominious
death, could so forget himself as to stop and kiss a little child, one
of the hated race for whom he was about to die, could by any
possibility fail. Did John Brown fail? Ask Henry A. Wise in whose
house less than two years after, a school for the emancipated slaves
was taught. Did John Brown fail? Ask James M. Mason, the author of the
inhuman fugitive slave bill, who was cooped up in Fort Warren, as a
traitor less than two years from the