[119] in the execution, and who were not ashamed of the part they took in it. Neither of them was a son of John Brown. They were settlers in the neighborhood.
John Brown himself subsequently corroborated their statements, without knowing that they had made them, by his account of the affair and denial of any participation in it. “But, remember,” he added, “I do not say this to exculpate myself; for, although I took no hand in it, I would have advised it had I known the circumstances; and I endorsed it as it was.”
“Time and the honest verdict of posterity,” he said, in his Virginia cell, “will approve of every act of mine.” I think it will also endorse all the acts that he endorsed; and among them this righteous slaughter of the ruffians at Pottawattomie. John Brown did not know that these men were killed until the following day; for, with one of his sons, he was twenty-five miles distant at the time. He was at Middle Creek. This fact can be proved by living witnesses. It is false, also, that the ruffians were cruelly killed. They were tried, made confession, allowed time to pray, and then slain in a second.
The effect of this act was highly beneficial to the security of the Free State men. It gave, indeed, to a preconcerted invasion, an excuse for entering the Territory ; but, by the terror which it inspired, by teaching the Missourians that the sword of civil war had a double edge, it saved the lives of hundreds who otherwise would have fallen the victims of Southern aggression. Every one in Kansas at the time admitted that fact, although many of them deny it now.
