Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1859 — Who Knew It? [ARTICLE]

Who Knew It?

Mr. S« wetary Floyd says he was informed of Brown’s plot to begin an insurrection at Harper’s Ferry last August) but paid fio attention to the information because he thought it was absurd. At that time Browrr was living at Harper’s Ferry, and the information, if given to the Armory officers at the Ferry, though discredited, would still have put them on their guard. They would have watched Brown, and in all probability have ascertained enough of his plans to have stopped him before an actual outbreak. But having no cause for suspicion, of course they learned nothing, made no provision for guards, and took no care to keep their stock of arms out of reaeji. In lact so unguarded’ were they that the superintendent was absent in Massachusetts at the time of the outbreak. Now it would have coat Mr. Secretary Floyd nothing to have sent the letter exposing Brown’s conspiracy to the Armory superintendent. The Secretary knew, for it is in his department of the Government, that there were no soldiers or guards at the Armory, and that the seizure of the building with its contents by a few desperate men was not impossible, however impossible was the ultimate purpose of raising an insurrection. Yet so trifling an effort he refused to make... If he is not. in a degree responsi&lfe' for the success of the rioters, we are curious to see how any man can be held responsible as ari accessory before the fact. He did not help the rioters, it is true, but he did not take any steps to stop them, when he confesses that he had been informed of their operations. A good deal less straining of this evidence than the Democrats make at the' evidence of Forbs’ letters, would turn it into a proof that Mr. Floyd intended that the insurrection should take place, so that political capital might be made of it. There is no evidence affecting any Republican one half as clear and direct as this. Taking it in connection with Governor Willard’s avowed relationship to one of the leaders, and his anxiety to save him, we have more evidence of Democratic complicity in Brown’s scheme than has yet been found of Republican complicity, by about five hundred fold. —State Journal.