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GOV. WISE TO MRS. CHILD
The following is the reply of Governor Wise of Virginia, to the letter of Mrs. Child, expressing sympathy with John Brown, and requesting permission to visit him in prison and nurse him as a sister. Like other sentimental sympathizers, Mrs. Child, after the mischief is done which the impractical wordiness of such has served to instigate, now volunteers a profession of “peace principles.” Gov. Wise disposes of the good lady as follows:
RICHMOND, VA., Oct. 29, 1859.
MADAM: Yours of the 26th was received by me yesterday, and at my earliest leisure I respectfully reply to it, that I will forward the letter for John Brown, a prisoner under our laws, arraigned at the bar of the circuit court for the county of Jefferson, at Charlestown, Va., for the crimes of murder, robbery, and reason, which you ask me to transmit to him. I will comply with your request in the only way which seems to me proper, by enclosing it to the Commonwealth’s attorney, with the request that he will ask the permission of the court to hand it to the prisoner. Brown, the prisoner, is now in the hands of the juciary, not of the Executive of the Commonwealth.
You ask me, further, to allow you to perform the mission “of mother or sister, to dress his wounds and speak soothingly to him.” By this, of course, you mean to be allowed to visit him in his cell, and to minister to him in the officers of humanity. Why should you not be allowed, madam? Virginia and Massachusetts are involved in no civil war, and the constitution which unites them in one confederacy guaranties to you privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States in the State of Virginia. That constitution I am sworn to support, and am, therefore, bound to protect your privileges and immunities as a citizen of Massachusetts coming into Virginia for any lawful and peaceful purpose. Coming, as you propose, to minister to the captive in prison, you will be met, doubtless, by all our people, not only in a chivalrous, but in a Christian spirit. You have a right to visit Charlestown, Virginia, madam; and your mission being merciful and humane, will not only be allowed, but be respected, if not welcomed. A few unenlightened and inconsiderate persons, fanatical in their modes of thought and action to maintain justice and right, might molest you, or be disposed to do so, and this might suggest the imprudence of risking an experiment upon the peace of a society very much excited by the crimes with whose chief author you seem to sympathise so much; but still, I repeat, your motives and avowed purpose are lawful and peaceful, and I will, as far as I am concerned, do my duty in protecting your rights in our limits.
Virginia and her authorities would be weak indeed – weak in point of folly and weak in point of power – if her State faith and constitutional obligations cannot be redeemed in her own limits to the letter of morality as well as of law. And if her chivalry cannot courteously [illegible] to a prisoner, every arm [illegible] from rescue on the one [illegible] law on the other, will be [illegible] person in Virginia. I could [illegible] even to woman in her walk [illegible] though it be to one whet [illegible] for our moths, sisters, [illegible] We have no sympathy with your sentiments of sympathy [illegible] and are surprised that you were “taken by surprise when news came of Captain Brown’s recent attempt.” His attempt was a natural consequence of your sympathy, and the errors of that sympathy, and the errors of that sympathy ought to make you doubt its virtue from the effect on his conduct. But it is not of this I should speak. When you arrive at Charlestown, if you were to go there, it will be for the court and its officers, the Commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff and jailer, to say whether you many see and wait on the prisoner. But, whether you are thus permitted or not, (and you will be if my advice can prevail.) you may rest assured that he will be humanely, lawfully and mercifully dealt by in prison and on trial.
Repsectfuly, HENRY A. WISE.
L. Maria Child.
