To-day, Kansas is free, and the verdict of impartial men is, that to John Brown, more than any other man, Kansas owes her present position. I am not the biographer of John Brown, but I can be indulged in giving here the opinion common among my people of one so eminently worthy of the highest veneration. Close observation of him, during many weeks, and under his orders at his Kennedy-Farm fireside, also, satisfies me that in comparing the noble old man to Moses, and other men of piety and renown, who were chosen by God to his great work, none have been more faithful, none have given a brighter record. CHAPTER II. PRELIMINARIES TO INSURRECTION--WHAT MAY BE TOLD AND WHAT NOT--JOHN BROWN’S FIRST VISIT TO CHATHAM--SOME OF THE SECRETS FROM THE “CARPET-BAG.” To go into particulars, and to detail reports current more than a year before the outbreak, among the many in the United States and Canada who had an inkling of some “practical work” to be done by “Osawattomie Brown,” when there should be nothing to do in Kansas,--to give facts in that connection, would only forestall future action, without really benefitting the slave, or winning over to that sort of work the anti-slavery men who do not favor physical resistance to slavery. Slaveholders alone might reap benefits; and for one, I shall throw none in their way, by any indiscreet avowals; they already enjoy more than their share; but to a clear understanding of all the facts to be here published, it may be well to say, that preliminary arrangements were made in a number of places,--plans proposed, discussed and decided upon, numbers invited to participate in the movement, and the list of adherents increased. Nine insurrections is the number given by some as the true list of outbreaks since slavery was planted in America; whether correct or not, it is certain that preliminaries to each are unquestionable. Gabriel, Vesey, Nat Turner, all had conference meetings; all had their plans; but they differ from the Harper’s Ferry insurrection in the fact that neither leader nor men, in the latter, divulged ours, when in the most trying of situations. Hark and another met Nat Turner in secret places, after the fatigues of a toilsome day were ended; Gabriel promulged his treason in the silence of the dense forest; but John Brown reasoned of liberty and equality in broad daylight, in a modernized building, in conventions with closed doors, in meetings governed by the elaborate regulations laid down by Jefferson, and used as their guides by Congresses and Legislatures; or he made known the weighty theme, and his comprehensive plans resulting from it, by the cosy fireside, at familiar social gatherings of chosen ones, or better, in the carefully arranged junto of earnest, practical men. Vague hints, careful blinds, are Nat Turner’s entire make-up to save detection; the telegraph, the post-office, the railway, all were made to aid the new outbreak. By this, it will be seen that