Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/196

JOHN BROWN HIS SPEECH TO THE COURT AT HIS TRIAL ^ (1859) Bom in 1800, died in 1859; removed to Kansas in 1855 in order tc oppose the extension of slavery; gained a victory over an invading party from Missopji at Ossawatomie in August, 1856; seized the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, October, 1859, for the purpose of arming the negroes for an insurrection; captured two days later, tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia and executed. I HAVE, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted — the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of 1 His last speech to the court (November 2, 1859) before which he was tried at Charlestown, West Virginia, his execution taking place on December 2 of the same year. During the night before the execution a company of soldiers, with their arms and aocou- torments, slept in the court-room where Brown had been tried, and It is a curious fact that one of these soldiers was John Wilkes Booth. 186