American Histories. John Edgar Wideman

my Constitution.

      When not occupied by my pen, I have benefited from your willing ear, your thoughtful responses to my poor attempt to draft a document that protects every American instead of a privileged few. I am eternally indebted to you for the sanctuary you provided, for your unceasing hospitality these last three weeks, and to demonstrate my gratitude, I’m ashamed to admit, I ask for even more from you. Not for myself this time, but for the grand cause we both are destined to serve. You must join us in Virginia, Frederick Douglass.

      Why are you certain that my enslaved brethren will “hive” to you, as you put it. Why certain that a general insurrection will follow the Harpers raid and topple the South’s slaveholding empire, free my people from bondage. I agree with much of your reasoning and share your sense of urgency, but do not share your certainty. Envy it, yes, but do not share it. You cite Toussaint’s successful revolt in Haiti and Maroons free in the hills of Jamaica. Yet Virginia is not Jamaica, not Haiti. I believe there must be better ways than bloody rebellion to end the abomination of slavery. Why are you so certain God looks with favor on your plan. What if, despite your fervor and good intentions, you are wrong.

      Wrong, you say. Wrong. In this nation where a man’s color is reason enough to put him in chains. Where cutthroats in Kansas murder settlers whose only offense is hatred of slavery. Where a senator is caned in the halls of Congress for condemning manstealers. In a nation where every citizen is compelled by law to aid and abet slave masters who seek to recover escaped “property,” why is it difficult to separate right from wrong.

      I tremble as I utter this chilling thought, Frederick Douglass, but what if no God exists except in the minds of believers. Would it not behoove us more, not less, to bear witness to what is right. To testify. To manifest, in our acts, the truth of our God’s commandments.

      I make no claim to be God’s chosen warrior. I have studied an assault on the Virginia arsenal for a very long while. Devised a strategy I believe will exploit a powerful enemy’s weaknesses. Recruited and trained good men to fight alongside me and my sons. Weighed both moral and practical consequences. Asked myself a thousand times what right do I have to commence such an undertaking. Still, I would be a fool to think I’m closer to knowing God’s plan. We serve Him in the light or darkness of our understanding.

      (1859)

      Stand with us. You would be a beacon, Frederick. Let Southerners and Northerners, freemen and the enslaved, see the righteous power, the fierce, unquenchable spirit I recognized in you the first time we met. Let the world know that you are aroused, aggrieved. That you will not rest until your brethren are free. Teach your fellow countrymen there can be no peace, no forgiveness as long as slavery abides. Accompany us to Virginia. Strike a blow with us.

      I must die one day, John Brown, sure enough. But I feel no need to hurry it. I don’t reckon that ending my life in Virginia will make me a better man than one who chooses to survive and dedicates himself to serving God and his people. I shall continue my work here in the North. Offer my life, not my death, to my people.

      I respect your well-known courage and principles. Nevertheless, I must speak bluntly, and say that I believe you quibble. You speak as if a man’s time on earth is merely a matter of hours, days, years.

      In this business we cannot afford to bargain. To quibble about more time, less time, a better time. We are not accountants, Fred. Duty requires more than crying out against slavery, more than attempting to maintain a decent life while the indecencies of slavery are rife about us. To rid the nation of a curse, blows must be struck. Blood shed. I am prepared to shed blood. Mine. My sons’.

      And my blood. And the blood of young Green here, fresh from chains, who, after listening to us debate, not quibble, chooses to accompany you to Virginia.

      Some days, I assure you, my feet, my mind rage. Yet a voice intercedes: do not give up hope for this intolerable world. Change must come. Like you, I believe the Good Lord in Heaven has grown impatient with this Sodom. Soon He may perform a cleansing with His glorious, stiff-bristled broom. I will rejoice if He calls me to that work.

      I have made up my mind as you have made up yours, John Brown. And this man, Green, his mind. Godspeed to you both.

      9

      My name is John Brown and I want my son to hear the story of my name so I will talk the story to this good white lady promises she write down every word and send them in a letter to my son in Detroit on Pierce Road last I heard of him and his wife and three children, a boy, two girls, don’t know much else about them, must be old by now, maybe those three children got kids and grandkids of they own and I never seen none them with my own two eyes, these old eyes bad now don’t see much of anything no more, wouldn’t hardly see them grands nor great-grands today if they standing here right beside this bed so guess I never will see them in this life and that fact makes me very sorry, son, and old-man sorry the worse kind of sorry, I believe, and let me tell you, my son, don’t you dare put off to tomorrow because tomorrow not promised, tomorrow too late, too late, but don’t need to tell you all that, do I, son, you ain’t no spring chicken, you got to be old your ownself cause I comes into the world in eighteen and fifty-eight just before the war old John Brown started and seem like wasn’t hardly no time before here you come behind me, me still a boy myself, but I want to tell you the story of my name not my age and how you supposed to know that story less I tell it and this nice lady write the words and maybe you read them one day to my grands and great-grands, son, then they know why John Brown my name and why John Brown a damn fine name, but listen, son, don’t you ever put off to tomorrow trying to be a good man, a honest man, hardworking, loving man, don’t put it off cause that gets a man in trouble, deep-down trouble, cause time is trouble, time full of trouble, and time on your hands when your hands ain’t doing right fills up your time with trouble, then it’s too late, your time to do right gone, you in the middle of doing evil or trying not to or trying to undo evil you done and time gone, too late, like me in a cage a dozen and some years locked up behind bars for killing a fella didn’t even know his name till I hears it in the courtroom and lucky he black everybody say or you wouldn’a made it to no damn courtroom, no jail, crackers string your black ass up, the other prisoners say, you lucky nigger, they say, and cackle, grin, and shake they heads and moan and some nights make you want to cry like a baby all them long, long years when if I ain’t slaving in the fields under a hellfire sun I’m sitting in a cell staring at a man’s blood on a juke-joint floor, never get my time back once I yanks a bowie knife out my belt and he waving his knife and mine quicker finds his heart, the very same bowie knife my father Jim Daniels give to me and John Brown give to him, said, Use this hard, cold steel, Mr. Jim Daniels, on any man try to rob your freedom, same knife old John Brown stole from the crackers like he stole my daddy, mama, my sister and brother, and a passel of other Negroes from crackers down in Kansas and Missouri, it’s too late, too late, knife in my hand, I watched a man bleed to death inside those stone walls every day year after year, hard time, son, you wait too long to do right it’s too late and you can’t do nothing, can’t change time, and that’s that, like the fact I never seen my grands, never seen you but once, one time up there on the Canada side in that cold and snow and wind, your mama carried you all them miles, had you wrapped up like you some little Eskimo or little papoose. It was only once only that one time I ever seen you, there you was with your mother, she come cross with you on the ferry, and me and her talked or mize well tell it like it was, she talked and I kinda halfway listened but I didn’t want to hear nothing I wasn’t ready to hear, nodded my head, smiled, chucked you under your chubby double chins, patted her shoulder, smooched her beautiful brown Indin-color colored cheek a couple times, always liked your mama, but the problem was I didn’t know then what I know now, son, or excuse me, yes I did, I knowed it just as clear as day, course I did, just didn’t want to hear it cause I had other plans, knucklehead, young-blood plans, what I’ma do with a wife and baby, it was rough up there, barely feed myself, keep a roof over my head, if you could call a tent a roof, so how am I supposed to look out for youall, anyway, it was only that once I seen you, then same day she’s back on the ferry, she’s gone, you gone, nothing, no word for lots and lots of years cept a little tad or tidbit the way news come and go in prison or hear this or that happened from people passing through up there in Canada, me asking or somebody telling tales they don’t even