When John Brown lay under sentence of death he
declared that now he was sure that slavery must be wiped out in blood;
but neither he nor his executioners dreamt that within four years a
million soldiers would be marching across the country for its final
extirpation, to the music of the war-song of the great conflict:
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on."
And now, at the age of fifty-one, this child of the wilderness, this farm
laborer, rail-sputter, flatboatman, this surveyor, lawyer, orator,
statesman, and patriot, found himself elected by the great party which
was pledged to prevent at all hazards the further extension of slavery,
as the chief magistrate of the Republic, bound to carry out that purpose,
to be the leader and ruler of the nation in its most trying hour.
Those who believe that there is a living Providence that overrules and
conducts the affairs of nations, find in the elevation of this plain man
to this extraordinary fortune and to this great duty, which he so fitly
discharged, a signal vindication of their faith.
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