BAD NEWS FOR THE ABOLITIONISTS
Our special Richmond dispatch informs us that it has been decided on by the Virginia authorities to hand over Cooke [Cook] – John Brown’s lieutenant – to be tried by the federal court in the Harper’s Ferry district. The object of this is to have Seward, Greeley, Sanborn, Wilson, Hale, Forbes, Gerrit Smith, and all others who were implicated in the conspiracy, or who are known to have been in the secrets of the conspirators, subpoenaed as witnesses, and placed on the stand to tell all they know in the matter. They are outside the jurisdiction of the Virginia State courts, but not of the federal courts.
Gerrit Smith, it seems, was anxious, after the failure of his ‘Kansas work,’ to unburthen his mind and make a full statement to the public, confessing his own connection with the Harper’s Ferry outrage, and showing up the part taken in it by all the black republicans and abolitionists of New York and New England: but his friends restrained him, and induced him to keep quiet. If the plan intimated by our Richmond correspondent be carried out, the Peterboro philanthropist will have a legitimate opportunity afforded him of telling ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’
We do sincerely hope, therefore, that the federal and the Virginia authorities will arrive at a prompt understanding on this matter, have Cooke put on trial before a district Judge of the United States, and process issued to compel the attendance of all persons in this section of the country whose names have been associated with the traitorous and murderous acts of Ossawatomie Brown. We will then know to what extent Seward, Sumner, Smith, Lawrence, Greeley & Co., were aiders and abettors in this villainous conspiracy. Hurry up the indictment! --- New York Herald.
