His soul on fire with the fixed5 idea that he had been ordained6 by God todrench a nation in blood, he joyfully7 began the task of creating the mobmind.
No man in history had a keener appreciation8 of the power of the dailypress in the propaganda of crowd ideas. The daily newspaper had justblossomed into its full radiance in the modern world. No invention inthe history of the race has equaled the cylinder9 printing press as anengine for creating crowd movements.
The daily newspaper of 1859 spoke10 only in the language of crowds. Theywere, in fact, so many mob orators11 haranguing12 their subscribers. Theywrote down to the standards of the mob. They were molders of publicopinion and they were always the creatures of public opinion. They wrotefor the masses. Their columns were filled with their own peculiar13 brandof propaganda, illusions, dreams, assertions, prejudices, sensations,with always a cheap smear14 of moral platitude15. Our people had grown toobusy to do their own thinking. The daily newspapers now did it for them.
There was as little originality16 in them as in the machines which printedthe editions. Yet they were repeated by the crowd as God-inspired truth.
We no longer needed to seek for the mob in the streets. We had it at thebreakfast table, in the office, in the counting room. The process ofcrowd thinking became the habit of daily life.
John Brown hastened to use this engine of propaganda. From hiscomfortable room in the jail at Charlestown there poured a daily streamof letters which found their way into print.
A perfect specimen17 of his art was the concluding paragraph of a letterto his friend and fellow conspirator18, George L. Stearns of Boston.
"I have asked to be _spared_ from having any _mock or hypocriticalprayers made over me_ when I am publicly _murdered_; and that my only_religious attendants_ be poor, _little, dirty, ragged19, bareheadedand barefooted slave boys and girls_, led by old, _gray-headed slavemothers_,"This message he knew would reach the heart of every Abolitionist ofthe North, of every reader of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. On the day of histransfiguration on the scaffold he would deliver the final word thatwould sweep these millions into the whirlpool of the Blood Feud20.
To his wife and children he wrote a message which hammered again hisfixed idea into a dogma of faith:
"John Rogers wrote to his children, 'Abhor21 the arrant22 whore of Rome.'
John Brown writes to his children to abhor with _undying hatred_ alsothe 'sum of all villainies,' slavery."Not only did these daily letters find their way into the hands ofmillions through the press, but the newspapers maintained a staff ofreporters at Charlestown to catch every whisper from the prisoner. Sobrilliantly did these reports visualize23 his daily life that the crowdswho read them could hear the clanking of the chains as he walked and thegroans that came from his wounded body.
Thousands of letters began to pour into the office of the Governor ofVirginia, threatening, imploring24, pleading for his life. The leadingpoliticians of all parties of the North were at length swept into thishowling mob by the press. To every plea the Governor of the Commonwealthreplied:
"Southern Society is built on Reverence25 for Law. The Law has beenoutraged by this man. It shall be vindicated26, though the heavens fall."In this stand he was immovable and the South backed him to a man. Forexciting servile insurrection the King of Great Britain was held upto everlasting27 scorn by our fathers who wrote the Declaration ofIndependence. For this crime among others we rebelled and establishedthe American Republic. Should John Brown be canonized for the sameinfamy? The Southern people asked this question in dumb amazement28 at theclamor from the North.
And so the Day of Transfiguration on the scaffold dawned.
Judge Thomas Russell and his good wife journeyed all the way from Bostonto minister to the wants of their strange guest. There was in thedistinguished jurist's mind a question which he must ask Brown beforethe rope should strangle him forever. His martyrdom had cleared everydoubt and cloud from the mind of his friend save one. His fascinatingletters, filled with the praise of God and the glory of a martyr29'scause, had exalted30 him.
The judge had heard his speech in court on the day he was sentenced todeath and had believed that each word was inspired. But the old man, whowas now to die in glory, had spent a week in Judge Russell's house inBoston hiding from a deputy sheriff in whose hands was a warrant forplain murder--one of the foulest31 murders in the records of crime. Thejudge was a student of character, as well as Abolitionist.
He asked Brown for his last confidential32 statement as to these crimes onthe Pottawattomie. There was no hesitation33 in his bold reply. Standingbeneath the shadow of the gallows35, the white hand of Death on hisstooped shoulders, one foot on earth and the other pressing the shoresof eternity36, he lied as brazenly37 as he had lied a hundred times before.
He assured his friend and his wife that he had nothing to do with thosekillings.
Mrs. Russell, weeping, kissed him.
And Brown said calmly: "Now, go."As he ascended38 the scaffold he handed to one who stood near his finalmessage, the supreme utterance39 over which he had prayed day and night tohis God. Despatched from the scaffold, and sealed by his blood, he knewthat its magic words would spread by contagion40 the Red Thought.
His face shone with the glory of his hope as his feet climbed thescaffold steps. On the scrap41 of paper he had written:
"I, JOHN BROWN, AM NOW QUITE CERTAIN THAT THE CRIMES OF THIS GUILTY LANDWILL NEVER BE PURGED42 AWAY BUT WITH BLOOD."The trap fell, his darkened soul swung into eternity and the deedwas done. He had raised the Blood Feud to the nth power. His messagethrilled the world.
Bells were tolling43 in the North while crowds of weeping men and womenknelt in prayer to his God. Had they but lifted the veil and looked,they would have seen the face of a fiend. But their eyes were nowblinded with the madness which had driven him to his death.
In Cleveland, Melodeon Hall was draped in mourning at a meeting wherethousands wept and cursed and prayed. Mammoth44 gatherings45 were held inNew York, in Rochester and Syracuse. In Boston a crowd, so dense46 theywere lifted from their feet by the pressure of thousands behind,clamoring for entrance, rushed into Tremont Temple.
William Lloyd Garrison47, the Pacifist, declared the meeting was called towitness John Brown's resurrection. He flung the last shred48 of principleto the winds and joined the mob of the Blood Feud without reservation.
"As a peace man--an ultra peace man--I am prepared to say: 'Success toevery Slave Insurrection in the South and in every Slave Country!'"Wendell Phillips, believing Judge Russell's report of Brown's denial ofthe Pottawattomie murders, declared to the thousands who crowded Cooperunion that John Brown was a Saint--that he was not on the PottawattomieCreek on that fateful night, that he was not within twenty-five miles ofthe spot!
Ralph Waldo Emerson, ignorant of the truth of Pottawattomie, hailedBrown as "the new Saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever ledby love of men into conflict and death--the new Saint who has achievedhis martyrdom and will make the gallows glorious as the cross."One great spirit among the anti-slavery forces refused to be swept inthe current of insanity49. Abraham Lincoln at Troy, Kansas, said on theday of Brown's death:
"Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a State. We cannotobject, even though he agreed with us in thinking Slavery wrong. Thatcannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail himnothing that he might _think_ himself right."Lincoln's voice was drowned in the roar of the mob.
John Brown from the scaffold had set in motion forces of mind beyondcontrol. Never before had men so little grasped the present, so stupidlyignored the past, so poorly divined the future. Reason had been hurledfrom her throne. Man had ceased to think.
Had Lieutenant50 Green's sword pierced Brown's heart he would havedied the death of a mad dog. His imprisonment51, his carefully stagedmartyrdom, his message of blood, and final, just execution by Lawcreated the mob mind which destroyed reverence for Law.
As he swung from the gallows and his body swayed for a moment betweenheaven and earth Colonel Preston, standing34 beside the steps, solemnlycried:
"So perish all such enemies of Virginia! All such enemies of the union!
All such foes52 of the human race!"Yet even as the trap was sprung, in the Capitol of the greatest Stateof the North, the leaders of the crowd were firing a hundred guns as adirge for their martyr hero.
A criminal paranoiac53 had become the leader of twenty millions of people.
The mob mind had caught the disease of his insanity and a nation beganto go mad.
Robert E. Lee, in command of the forces of Law and Order, watched theswaying ghostly figure with a sense of deep foreboding for the future.
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1
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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orators
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| n.演说者，演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
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haranguing
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的现在分词 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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platitude
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| n.老生常谈，陈词滥调 | |
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originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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abhor
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| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
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arrant
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| adj.极端的；最大的 | |
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visualize
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| vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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foulest
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| adj.恶劣的( foul的最高级 )；邪恶的；难闻的；下流的 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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brazenly
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| adv.厚颜无耻地；厚脸皮地肆无忌惮地 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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40
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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43
tolling
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| [财]来料加工 | |
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mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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49
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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50
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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51
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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52
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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paranoiac
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| n.偏执狂患者 | |
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