He
could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers
did not exist. When a man stands up serenely against the
condemnation and vengeance of mankind, rising above them literally
by a whole body- even though he were of late the vilest murderer,
who has settled that matter with himself- the spectacle is a sublime
one- didn't ye know it, ye Liberators, ye Tribunes, ye Republicans?-
and we become criminal in comparison. Do yourselves the honor to
recognize him. He needs none of your respect.
As for the Democratic journals, they are not human enough to
affect me at all. I do not feel indignation at anything they may say.
I am aware that I anticipate a little- that he was still, at the
last accounts, alive in the hands of his foes; but that being the
case, I have all along found myself thinking and speaking of him as
physically dead.
I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in
our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around
us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the
Massachusetts State-House yard than that of any other man whom I know.
I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.
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