SECESSION OF THE SOUTH.                           123
inopportune sensibility was arrested, tarred and feathered,
and banished. The rumor spread that the slaves would rise
and assemble to deliver old Brown. The volunteers were
called together, men rose in the night, trembling and agi-
tated, a prey to an absurd panic. The condemned coura-
geously awaited his end ; his accusers trembled like crimi-
nals pursued by justice. They would not defer it until the
opening of the legislature, for fear that there might be ques-
tion of commuting the penalty. On the 2d of December
Brown was hung.
Governor Wise had written to Mr. Wood, ex-Mayor of
New York, " Brown will certainly be hung, and his body
will be given to the surgeons to be carried beyond the
boundaries of the State, so that the carcass shall not pollute
the soil of Virginia." *
His accomplices were condemned and executed. Three
times more the scaffold was erected.f Their death did not
end the agitation. A book against slavery was interdicted,
according to the provisions of an article of the Code of
Virginia (Chapter CXVIII. Section 24), which requires post-
masters as well as federal officers to inform the authorities
if any abolition documents are received by them, and con-
demns the said documents to the flames. The volunteers
continued to play the soldier, and to style themselves major
or sergeant. The women vowed that they would wear
nothing but Virginia cloth ; a homespun ball was given ; at
the second ball, given to the daughter of a citizen of South
Carolina,}; who had been despatched to fraternize with Vir-
ginia, the fear of looking ugly prevailed over patriotism.
In public gatherings, there was talk of closing the railroads,
of opening direct maritime communication with France and
England, of raising a militia, of establishing manufactures,
* November 7, 1859.
t The last, Stevens and Hazlitt, were hung March 16,1860.
t Mr. Memminger, who, on his reception by the legislature, made a speech
• of four hours and a half.