John Brown’s address to his men at the Kennedy Farmhouse, October, 1859

ben davis

Caution sir? I am eternally tired of hearing that word, “caution”. It is nothing but the word of cowardice! Great men and women were not restrained by “caution.” They were full of enterprise, grit, zeal– whatever you wish to call it. Do you, sir, theorize when Mrs. Tubman crosses that damned line into barbarous territory to carry out our good Father’s work, that she is being cautious? Do you think that when Martin Luther nailed his theses numbering five and ninety to the church door at Wittenberg, he was being cautious? Do you believe when those men in Saint Domingue, just as sacred as you or I, threw off the shackles of the Napoleonic forces, they had caution in mind? 

Caution is the crutch of those who hesitate, those who do not have the gumption to face the trials and tribulations of this world. The gospels tell us to take courage, dear heart. There is no time for caution. A man only has his allotted time to walk upon this beautiful firmament. Your “caution” cannot buy him a second more. His worth, while he walks the fields and mountains, will be measured by the impact he has had upon his fellow brothers and sisters in the dust. For myself, sir, it is my most sincere hope to be named a good and faithful servant by our Creator. As it is also my deepest fear to be told I was never known. 

Caution. Sir, you must have needs of a spine. Thomas Jefferson is –was– a cautious man. He himself penned the words “all men are created equal,” yet he still kept his equals beneath his heel and in his bed. Heaven forbid that a man of lighter complexion himself sweats for his own profit. No, let him steal the labor and break the backs of his fellows for a bit of capital. And then let him go to the house of God! And glorify His name and teachings for a moment, and wield the whip the next. Does this man not see himself in Ramses II? In the Babylonian? The Assyrian? It does astound me as to how these cautious men cannot see their blasphemy staring them in the face. Must they receive the treatment of Belshazzar? Perhaps that is our place in this narrative of our United States. 

This, my good gentlemen, brings us to our purpose. The cry of Southern oppression wails banshee-like in this barbary. Our brothers and sisters toil beneath drivers who have twisted the very fabric of nature, of humanity, to their own cruel whims. Mr. Nathaniel Turner had the right of it. Mr. L’Overture in Saint Domingue had the right of it. Mrs. Tubman has the Lord’s Blessing. They had no want of “caution.” They only acknowledged the need for action, and their place in this action. The South must be corrected. There are no masters in human form upon this earth. Those who act as such create horrors beyond compare. To the divine eye, they have been weighed in the balance, and they have been found wanting. We shall be the instrument of the restoration of the balance.