Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1859 — HARPER'S FERRY INSURRECTION. [ARTICLE]

HARPER'S FERRY INSURRECTION.

We devote a large share of our space this week to the details of the wild and insane demonstration at Harper’s Ferry last week, by “Ossawatomie” Brown, of Kansas notoriety. That Brown is insane—a monamaniac—there can be no doubt; for no man, in his right mind, w’ould attempt the reckless and bloody project set on foot by him. However, crazy or not crazy, we hope that he and his companions in guilt may be placed where they will never again nave an opportunity to commit treason; and if the telegraph report be true, that Gerritt Smith and Fred. Douglass had furnished Brown with money to carry out his scheme of insurrection, we hope that they, too, may be made to feel the heavy hand of Uncle Sam. The developement of Brown's conspiracy has very naturally caused great excitement in the Southern States, as he admitts that he had friends at the South as well as at the North. Our Southern friends have Douglas alone to thank ‘or the great uneasiness in which they are now placed lor fear of an uprising of their slaves, “Ossawatomie” Brown would never have been heard of had not the Missouri Compromise been repealed, and the plighted faith of the Union violated. The outrages perpetrated in Kansas in the name of slavery brought Brown and hi.* reckless companions onto the stage of action, and we believe that the murder of Brown’s son in Kansas, in cold blood, made him a monimaniac on the subject of slavery, and determined him to wreak vengeance on the institution which brought desolation to his home. The Democratic papers are attempting to manufacture political capital out of this unfortunate affair, by charging it upon the Republican party; but if they will take a second thought, they will perceive in what a ridiculous and humiliating attitude they are placing our Southern friends by doing so. If seventeen crazy white men and five ignorant niggers can tuke possession of a United States Arsenal in a populous town, hold their position in defiance of hundreds ol citizens of the neighborhood, until a thousand soldiers are brought from a distmee, and frighten the President, Gov. Wise, and the citizens of two populous States almost out of their wits—if seventeen white men and five niggers in arms can d > ail this, what would be the effect on the hivalrv” of the South, (which claims all the valor of the country,) if the whole. Republican partv were to rise in arms, backed by the slave population, as is so frequently predicted by Northern Doughfaces and Southern Fireeaters! Let us hear no more of the Republicans taking up arms, if they d ired, to liberate the slaves by force, after twenty-two men, all told, unaided even by public sentiment, have set the slaveholders of the Southern half of the Republic to quaking with fear. If the slaves ot the south ever d* rise in arms against their masters, none will hasten to the aid of our slaveholding brethren more readily than the members of the Republican party, who have been and are so much abused by pro-slavery men. Perhaps the incident at Harper's Ferry will open the eyes of the Southern people to see the terrible volcano they are standing over, which mayburs: in : ntensest fury at any fnoment. Four millions of slaves is a source of danger constantly, and if the Southern people are blind to this fact, the sooner they take it into con. sideration the better it will be for them. They should see how unwise and foolhardy it is to stigmatize as traitors to the Union a large party of patriots, whom the exigencies of the tim •> may yet cal! to help their Southern friends in a servile insurrection. If they gave us credit fur what we deserve, they would look upon us as brothers, differing with them in our opinion as to how the institution of slavery should be dealt with; but brothers nevertheless, anxious for the prosperity and perpetuity of this noble Republic, and doing all we can, in our opinion, to place it on a firm and lasting basis. We pity the veracity or intelligence of the men who charge that the Republicans love the Union less than any other set of men. Every act of the party bearing bn the subject of slavery, is made with an eye single to the spreading of our free institutions. Thev believe that thereby the Union can best be preserved.