\n\n\nIt is a truth clearly demonstrable from both reason and revelation, as well as from the principle defended in the late War of Independence, Edwards concluded, that opposing slavery is “a duty which we owe to mankind, to ourselves, and to God too. It is but doing as we would that men should do to us.” Owen Brown read Reverend Hallock’s copy of this sermon and declared himself an abolitionist. Years later, his son, stumping through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in an effort to gather money, arms, and recruits for a patriotic war against slavery, would tell his audiences, “I believe in the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence. I think they both mean the same thing.” ^ref-59731
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\n\n\nEphesians 6 also fired the Sunday school teacher’s vague aspiration to bolder initiatives. “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” ^ref-31759
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\n\n\nThe town was soon rechristened Richmond, its post office was a shelf in Brown’s kitchen, and when letters had gathered for neighbors on outlying farms, he rode out along a wide-arching mail route to deliver them. Of these local residents, and of each new settler in Richmond, Brown wished to know three things, and asked his questions directly at the first opportunity. Were they observers of the Sabbath? Were they antislavery? Did they support common, or publicly funded, schools? ^ref-22853
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\n\n\nIn the day’s waning hours, the children might join Brown and his tannery workers in the yard for athletic exercises or tests of strength: footraces, leaping contests, rope pulls, arm-wrestling matches. On long winter evenings, after supper and prayers, family members and journeymen sat or sprawled around the roaring fire in the combination kitchen and living room, reading, mending clothes, and listening to or taking part in organized debates on questions such as whether Washington or Napoleon was the superior general and whether human beings, taken collectively, were fulfilling the end for which they were created. Brown loved staging such debates, which he valued for the mental and moral exercise they afforded. ^ref-14222
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\n\n\nBrown would call for “my babies” and have the younger ones recite the couplet that he taught them all as soon as they could understand it: “Count that day lost, whose low descending sun / Views from thy hand no worthy action done.” ^ref-739
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\n\n\nWilliam Lloyd Garrison ^ref-5056
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\n\n\nMoving beyond the negro issue, the federal government officially confirmed that America was reserved for whites in the first major achievement of the Jackson administration, the Indian Removal Act. The projects of removing Indians to the other side of the Mississippi and of returning free blacks to Africa shared the aim of clearing the geographic and economic field for the American common man. ^ref-46528
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\n\n\nhe prefaced his thanksgiving for the meal his household was about to receive with a scripturally inspired commentary on the subject. Standing at the end of the long table, speaking with his eyes closed, Brown catalogued the sufferings of the enslaved negroes in the south. It was their duty, he explained to his children, to do whatever they could to relieve these sufferings and help the slaves gain their freedom. ^ref-53205
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\n\n\nsaid, “I pledge myself, with God’s help, that I will devote my life to increasing hostility to slavery.” ^ref-1736
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\n\n\nSlavery was nothing but the most diabolical and cowardly form of warfare that human beings had devised, Brown told his family. ^ref-19104
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\n\n\nNonresistants such as Mr. Garrison, he continued, could never bring this unholy war to an end. Those who wielded words alone could never end it. Only force could end slavery—force brought by white men as well as black who were willing to take up arms against it and, if necessary, die in the fight. He knew it to be his duty, Brown told his wife and sons, to make war on slavery. ^ref-55360
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\n\n\nShould that be the will of Providence, I know of no other way but we must consider ourselves very poor; for our debts must be paid, if paid at a sacrifice. Should that happen (though it may not), I hope God, who is rich in mercy, will grant us grace to conform to our circumstances with cheerfulness and true resignation.” ^ref-32825
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