The Natick Resolution; or, Resistance to Slaveholders/Letter to Governor Wise (First)
The above letter to John Brown, with the resolution passed at Natick, November 20th, 1859, was forwarded to Gov. Wise, of Virginia, accompanied with the following note, requesting him to deliver it to Capt. Brown, then in prison, awaiting his execution:—
Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia:
Sir,—Enclosed is a resolution adopted by the people of Natick, Mass., the residence of the Hon. Henry Wilson. At their request, I forward it to John Brown, with a letter to him. The resolution and letter may give peace and satisfaction to him in his last hours. However repulsive the sentiments may be to you, and to the people over whom you preside, they may sustain him on the scaffold. The appeal is to your magnanimity and justice to put them into his hands.
You think he has done foolishly and wickedly. We think his object has been noble, and his motives disinterested, heroic and sublime. We ask not his life, but we do ask that you would let him know that he lives, and ever will live, in the hearts of his long-tried personal friends, and of the friends of freedom and the enemies of slaveholding throughout the North.
Grant to us and to him this favor, and our sincere thanks shall be yours, though our hearts must ever protest against the injustice and political insanity that, for an effort so truly humane, grand and heroic, shall consign his body to the gallows.
Thine,