On Friday, December 2, 1859, John Brown was hanged. Through the North, church bells tolled and prayers were said for him. Everywhere people gathered together to mourn and honor or to condemn. In New York City, at a big meeting which overflowed to the streets, it was resolved "that we regard the recent outrage at Harper's Ferry as a crime, not only against the State of Virginia, but against the Union itself...." In Boston, however, Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke to a tremendous audience of "the new saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by love of man into conflict and death ... who will make the gallows glorious," and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow recorded in his diary, "This will be a great day in our history; the date of a new revolution." Far away in France, Victor Hugo declared, "The eyes of Europe are fixed on America. The hanging of John Brown will open a latent fissure that will finally split the union asunder.... You preserve your shame, but you kill your glory."[88] In Rochester, three hundred people assembled. All were friends of the cause and there was no unfriendly disturbance to mar the proceedings. Susan presided and Parker Pillsbury, in her opinion, made "the grandest speech of his life," for it was the only occasion he ever found fully wicked enough to warrant "his terrific invective."[89] Thus these two militant abolitionists, Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury, joined hundreds of others throughout the nation in honoring John Brown, sensing the portent of his martyrdom and prophesying that his soul would go marching on. FOOTNOTES: [69] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 144-145. As John Brown visited Frederick Douglass in Rochester, it is possible that Susan B. Anthony had met him. [70] Oct. 19, 1856, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection. [71] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 148. [72] _Ibid._, p. 151; also quotation following. [73] Alice Stone Blackwell, _Lucy Stone_ (Boston, 1930), pp. 197-198. [74] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress. [75] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 152. [76] April 20, 1857, Abby Kelley Foster Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. [77] Parker Pillsbury, _The Acts of the Antislavery Apostles_ (Concord, N.H., 1883). [78] Harper, _Anthony_, I. p. 160. [79] March 22, 1858, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection. [80] N.d., Alma Lutz Collection. [81] Charles A. and Mary B. Beard, _The Rise of American Civilization_ (New York, 1930), II, p. 9. [82] A. M. Schlesinger and H. C. Hockett, _Land of the Free_ (New York, 1944), p. 297. [83] March 19, 1859, Antislavery Papers, Boston Public Library. [84] Francis Jackson, William Lloyd II, and Wendell Phillips Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_, 1805-1879 (New York, 1889), III, p. 486. [85] _Ibid._, p. 490. [86] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 181. [87] _Ibid._, p. 180. [88] Henrietta Buckmaster, _Let My People Go_ (New York, 1941), p. 269; Ehrlich, _God's Angry Man_, pp. 344-345, 350.