called culpable for having, without her consent, taken this girl, Anne, from bondage and actually giving her liberty. More than fifty years ago this, and how like a dream the whole matter seems. Ira Barton was the Justice of the Peace before whom one of the depositions was made. Solomon Strong, the earliest appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the Judge who heard the case. Pliny Merrick was the District Attorney who conducted the prosecution, and Charles Allen the Attorney who appeared for the defense. The trial had not advanced a great ways ere Mr. Merrick declared that there was no cause of action, and the jury at once acquitted the defendants. Charles Allen! A host of recollections of the Free Soil and Anti-Slavery days spring into being at the mention of his name. He was the Massachusetts Whig who, in 1848, refused to bow the knee to the Southern Baal, and to his fellow members of the Convention, after the nomination of General Taylor dared to say: "You have put one ounce too much on the strong back of Northern endurance. You have even presumed that the State which led on the first Revolution for Liberty will now desert that cause for the miserable boon of the vice-presidency. Sir, Massachusetts spurns the bribe," referring thus to the proposed nomination of Abbott Lawrence. It was a brother of Charles Allen our late esteemed friend, the Rev. George Allen, who in the same year offered to a meeting in Worcester, the most famous resolution of the whole ante-bellum period. Catching the spirit of his brother's words, he said: "Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains and spurns all bribes; that Massachusetts now, and will ever go, for free soil and free men, for free lips and a free press, for a free land and a free world." This was a good key-note, and when, six years later, in 1854 a slave-catcher came to this same city of Worcester, the citizens proved that they could raise the tune most readily; and the would-be man-stealer was only too happy to march to its measures out of the city, without his booty, and possessed of a whole skin. Mr. Jankins, the object of Butman, the kidnapper's cupidity, during these intervening thirty years, has continued to live in this city, a respectable and respected citizen; and has seen his children in the highest schools of the city. One, having graduated from the High School, is now in the Normal School. What a comment this, on the times when, in this Christian land, men and women were imprisoned for teaching black people how to read,—the Bible even.

I doubt whether the people of Worcester were the very strictest interpreters of the law in the days when the life of John Brown was in the balance. Of the technicalities of his offence it is not ours to judge. The people of the North who had made haste to rid themselves of slavery, had viewed for years the aggressive unrest of the South. While civilized countries other than ours had forever abolished the wretched system, our country, led by its Southern minority, had again and again done its best to bolster and uphold it. The war with Mexico, the annexation of Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, were only successive sops thrown to the insatiable monster. The repeal of the Compromise opened the Territory of Kansas to both Slavery and Anti-Slavery, and henceforth Massachusetts speaks with no uncertain voice. John Brown and Charles Sumner simultaneously spring into renown and immortality. Both of Bay State antecedents, their history is largely hers. One on the plains of Kansas fights for what he believes to be the right. His own blood and that of his sons flow in behalf of oppressed humanity. Border ruffians are driven back and a Free State Constitution adopted. Sumner, from his place in the United Sates Senate, boldly proclaims his sentiments on "The Crime against Kansas," and by an illustrious scion of the Southern aristocracy is stricken down in a manner which "even thieves and cut-throats would despise." The contest was on,—any pause thereafter was only a temporary lull. In the language of New York's most distinguished Senator, it was "Irrepressible." John Brown had repeatedly led parties of slaves from Missouri to Kansas, and made of them free men. He contemplated other and grander strokes against the peculiar institution. In his singleness of purposes, he saw not the power of the Government intervening, and perhaps, in his intensity, it would have made no difference if he had. Certain, however, is the statement, that the one grand idea over-towering all others in his mind, was that of liberty for the slaves; and for that idea men of his own and subsequent days have done him reverence.

Why review the scenes of those hours of attack and fierce defence at Harper's Ferry? Poorly informed, indeed, must be that American man or woman, boy or girl, who has not repeatedly read the events of those less than twenty-four hours of condensed history. They furnish the prelude to every account of the War of the Rebellion. No matter how vivid the scenes of later days, somewhere in the background we get these earlier details over again. The blow once struck, and there arose from Maine to Texas cries ranging through all the variations of surprise, exultation, and fiercest denunciation. I am speaking as a Northern man to Northern people, and it is natural that we should look upon the acts of John Brown with quite different feelings from those held by the people who saw in them the uprooting of all the traditions and customs of their society. For the present, however, I will confine myself to the opinions of those who from the north side of Mason and Dixon's Line, heard the "clash of resounding arms." There were many men who had in various ways assisted Brown in his work without knowing just what his plans were. It sufficed for them to know that he was to harry the Institution, leaving to him the perfecting and executing of details. The telegraphic dispatches on that Monday morning of October 17th, carried consternation into other homes than those of the South. It seemed reasonable to the Government that men who had contributed in any way to the support of John Brown must have been privy to his plans. However much we may pride ourselves now that such and such men assisted the movement, then the barest suspicion of complicity made many households look to their hearths. Some, whose names had been mingled with his, sought refuge in Canada, as Dr. S.G. Howe, Frederick Douglass and F.B. Sanborn. Gerrit Smith of New York, worn out by previous hard work, was by this final burden reduced to a condition necessitating his removal to the Utica Asylum. Now that the affair is all over and past, it seems very strange that men like those mentioned before, who were known to be intimate with the Revolutionist, were not made to suffer at the hands of the law. The only explanation that occurs to me is that public opinion, while it might not stay the hand of the executioner in Virginia, most resolutely opposed his crossing the line. "The New York Democratic Vigilance Association" issued a manifesto breathing forth threatenings against all those implicated in the matter, but it came to nothing. Every movement of the trial was followed with the closest interest, and Massachusetts sent down a man to assist in the defense who became, in after years, one of her most famous sons. It is certain that the experience of these weeks at Harper's Ferry gave John A. Andrew the prompting to the extraordinary zeal with which he entered upon the duties of his gubernatorial office less than two years afterward. The whole trial seems farcical; but we must admit that a show of fairness was had, and, considering the ferocity with which the old man was attacked when down in the Engine House, the only wonder is that he was granted a trial at all. Through all the trying hours of that ordeal how like a