An excerpt from John Brown’s address to the court after hearing his guilty verdict, 1859.
After being captured, John Brown was tried for treason and murder. The trial began on October 27 and Brown was found guilty on November 2. Upon hearing his verdict, Brown delivered a statement to the court, including this excerpt. This account comes from “The Raid of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry As I Saw It,” by Rev. Samuel Leech. Twenty-one year old Leech was one of several eyewitnesses to John Brown’s raid who subsequently wrote about what they saw.