Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
44 LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Douglass, in this letter quoted from, also promised
at the proper time, when it could be done
without compromising the friends of the slaves,
to tell all he knew of the attempt of John Brown
to liberate the bondmen of Virginia and Maryland.
As the country knows, he has faithfully
kept that promise in a published statement giving
all the facts as far as he knew them. Subsequent
history also verifies what he wrote to the
Rochester Democrat and American while in
Canada. The recent publication of the Life and
Letters of John Brown, by his friend, F B. Sanborn,
in which all the particulars of the foray at
Harper's Ferry are given to the public, coincides
with what Mr. Douglass has said. I quote Mr.
Sanborn, page 418 :—
"John Brown's long meditated plan of action
in Virginia was wholly his own, as he more than
once declared, and it was not until he had long
formed and matured it, that he made it known to
the few friends outside of his own household who
shared his confidence in that matter. I cannot
say how numerous these were, but beyond his
family and the armed followers who accompanied
him, I have never supposed that his Virginia
plan was known to fifty persons. Even to those
few it was not fully communicated, though they
knew that he meant to fortify himself somewhere
in the mountains of Virginia or Tennessee, and