Even if John Brown’s “first victim was an industrious, inoffensive colored man,” as is so eloquently stated by the FREE PRESS, the blood of that “victim” has borne glorious fruits to his race, unlocking their shackles, and to day they are entranchised people, represented before the Supreme Court of the State, with a legal status equal to those who “tried, convicted and condemned” the forerunner of a better day for a down-trodden and oppressed people. — Harper’s Ferry Sentinel.
The Sentinel starts out with an apparent endorsement of John Brown’s murderous raid upon Harper’s Ferry. The industrious, inoffensive colored man, who was master of his own time and the recipient of his own earnings, and was respected by all men who knew him–was murdered, forsooth, because he was “down trodden and oppressed!” Did they kill Boerly, the Irish citizen, and Turner, the cultured and worthy and chivalric farmer, and Beckham, the venerable, unarmed Mayor, a conservator of the peace and friend of all men, white and black, because they were “down trodden and oppressed?”
