A man does a brave and humane deed, and at once, on all sides, we
hear people and parties declaring, "I didn't do it, nor countenance
him to do it, in any conceivable way. It can't be fairly inferred
from my past career." I, for one, am not interested to hear you
define your position. I don't know that I ever was, or ever shall
be. I think it is mere egotism, or impertinent at this time. Ye
needn't take so much pains to wash your skirts of him. No intelligent
man will ever be convinced that he was any creature of yours. He
went and came, as he himself informs us, "under the auspices of
John Brown and nobody else." The Republican party does not perceive
how many his failure will make to vote more correctly than they
would have them. They have counted the votes of Pennsylvania & Co.,
but they have not correctly counted Captain Brown's vote. He has
taken the wind out of their sails,--the little wind they had,--and
they may as well lie to and repair.

What though he did not belong to your clique! Though you may not
approve of his method or his principles, recognize his magnanimity.
Would you not like to claim kindredship with him in that, though
in no other thing he is like, or likely, to you? Do you think that
you would lose your reputation so? What you lost at the spile,
you would gain at the bung.

If they do not mean all this, then they do not speak the truth,
and say what they mean. They are simply at their old tricks still.

"It was always conceded to him," says one who calls him crazy, "that
he was a conscientious man, very modest in his demeanor, apparently
inoffensive, until the subject of Slavery was introduced, when he