mentary on the attitude of
both government and people towards the Fugitive Slave Law. In March the
fugitives were safely landed in Canada and the rest of the horses
were sold in Cleveland, Ohio. The time was approaching for the move on
Virginia.

Brown now expended much time and attention upon a constitution for the
provisional government which he was to set up. In January and February,
1858, Brown had labored over this document for several weeks at the home
of Frederick Douglass at Rochester, New York. A copy was in evidence
at the conference with Sanborn and Gerrit Smith in February, and the
document was approved at a conference held in Chatham, Canada, on May 8,
1858, just at the time when Forbes's revelations caused the postponement
of the enterprise. It is an elaborate constitution containing
forty-eight articles. The preamble indicates the general purport:

Whereas, Slavery throughout its entire existence in the United States is
none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of
one portion of its citizens upon another portion the only conditions
of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute
extermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and
self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence:
Therefore, we the citizens of the United States, and the Oppressed
People, who, by a decision of the Supreme Court are declared to have no
rights which the White Man is bound to respect; together with all other
people degraded by the laws thereof, Do, for the time being ordain and
establish for ourselves, the following PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION AND
ORDINANCES, the better to protect our Persons, Property, Lives and
Liberties and to govern our actions.

Article Forty-six reads:

The foregoing articles shall not be construed so as in any way to
encourage the overthrow of any State Government or of the general
government of the United States; and look to no dissolution of the
Union, but simply to Amendment and Repeal. And our flag shall be the
same that our Fathers fought under in the Revolution.

In Article Forty, "profane swearing, filthy conversation, and indecent
behavior" are forbidden. The document indicates an obvious intention to
effect a revolution by a restrained and regulated use of force.

Mobilization of forces began in June, 1859. Cook, one of the original
party, had spent the year in the region of Harper's Ferry. In July the
Kennedy