< Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu
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CHAPTER X

THE GREAT BLACK WAY

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound."

Half-way between Maine and Florida, in the heart of the Alleghanies, a mighty gateway lifts its head and discloses a scene which, a century and a quarter ago, Thomas Jefferson said was "worth a voyage across the Atlantic." He continues: "You stand on a very high point of laud; on your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to find a vent; on your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea."[1]

This is Harper's Ferry and this was the point which John Brown chose for his attack on American slavery. He chose it for many reasons. He loved beauty: "When I met Brown at Peterboro in 1858," writes Sanborn, "Morton played some fine music to us in the parlor,—among other things

  1. ↑ Jefferson, Notes on Virginia.
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