Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1859 — BROWN’S TRIAL. [ARTICLE]

BROWN’S TRIAL.

The trial of Old John Brown was forced on and pushed through with indecent haste. He has three stabs in his body, and one sabre cut on the head. Stephens has three balls in his head, two in his breast, and one in his arm. Both have to be carried into Court, being unable to walk any -distance, or to stand. Yet when Brown, in consequence of his feeble condition, asked for a short delay, which would also give him time to procure counsel of his own choice, his reasonable request was denied. The reason given was the peculiar excitement pervading the public mind. In most Courts public excitement is considered sufficient reason for postponing a trial. But it appears to us that this is not the real reason why he is hurried to trial and execution, (for we believe that next Friday’s sun will see the last of Old John Brown on this earth.) The Virginians fear a rescue. When the prisoners were examined on Wednesday before the magistrates, they were escorted from the jail to the Court-ro in by eighty soldiers, toops were stationed around the building, and the Court-yard bristled with bayonets. So the telegraph says. Subsequently cannon was planted in front of the Court House door during the progress of the trial. What does all this signify? Nothing less than that the Virginians seem to believe Brown, when he said in his insane wanderings that God would help him out of this difficulty, as he had out of all others. His captors act as though they expect an army of Abolitionists to alight among them from the clouds, for a band of rescuers could certainly come from no other quarter through the heart of a slave State, (unless, indeed, their own slaves should take it in their heads to do so; but this could not be the case, as Governor Wise says that the Harper’s Ferry affair has proved their affection for their masters.) By -their indecent haste, they may cause Brown to be looked upon as a martyr. And by the extraordinary armed force with which they guard him and his companions, although in a dying condition, they are doing much to fasten the belief that slaveholders fe.'T an Abolitionist, though bleeding and in chains, more than they care to own. But as their whole social fabric rests on a hidden volcano, they snuff danger in every wind that blows from the North. If Brown be sane, let him suffer the death penalty; if not, let him be placed where he can do no more harm.