For what is the oath of
gentle blood and knighthood! What but to protect the weak and
lowly against the strong oppressor! Nothing is more absurd than
to complain of this sympathy, or to complain of a party of men
united in opposition to slavery. As well complain of gravity or
the ebb of the tide. Who makes the Abolitionist! The slave-
holder. The sentiment of mercy is the natural recoil which the
laws of the universe provide to protect mankind from destruction
by savage passions. And our blind statesmen go up and down, with
committees of vigilance and safety, hunting for the origin of
this new heresy. They will need a very vigilant committee,
indeed, to find its birthplace, and a very strong force to root
it up. For the arch-abolitionist, older than Brown, and older
than the Shenanndoah Mountains, is Love, whose other name is
Justice--which was before Alfred, before Lycurgus, before
Slavery, and will be after it.'
John Brown and, at one time, six of his sons were in the company.
Many were rejected who offered for service, not for lack of
physical stature, but moral. 'I would rather,' said John Brown,
'have the smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in my
camp than a man without principles.
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